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WHITE JACKET; 



OB, 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAR. 



BY 



HERMAN MELVILLE, 

AUTHOR OP "TYPEE," "oMOO," "MAKDI," AKD "REDBUBK." 



" Conceive him now In a man-of-war ; with his letters of mart, well 
armed, victualled, and appointed, and see how he acquits himself." — 
Fuller's Good Sea-Captain. 



VOL. L /-^rr^ 



LONDON: V:^r^,u, 

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 

1850. 



LONDON : 
R. GLAT, PKINTBB, BBEAD 8TBEET HlLL. 



PREFACE. 



The object of this work is to give some idea of 
the interior life in a man-of-war. In the year 1843, 
the author shipped as a common sailor on board of 
a United States frigate, then lying in a harbour 
of the Pacific Ocean. After serving on board of 
this frigate for more than a year, he was discharged, 
with the rest of the crew, upon the vessel's arrival 
home. His man-of-war experiences and observations 
have been incorporated into the present volumes. 
But these volumes are not presented as a journal of 
the cruise. 

As the object of this work is not to portray the 
particular man-of-war in which the author sailed, 
and its oflBcers and crew, but, by illustrative scenes, 
to paint general life in the Navy, the true name of 
the frigate is not given. Nor is it here asserted 
that any of the persons introduced in the following 

VOL. I. b 



IV PREFACE. 

chapters are real individuals. Wherever statements 
are made in any way concerning the established 
laws and usages of the Navy, facts have been 
strictly adhered to. Allusion is sometimes made 
to events or facts in the past history of Navies. In 
these cases, no statement is presented unless sup- 
ported by the best authorities. For the hitherto 
unrecorded by-play of circumstances in one or two 
well-known naval actions referred to, the writer is 
indebted to the seamen into whose mouths these 
things are put. 

The work opens at the frigate's last harbour in 
the Pacific, just previous to weighing her anchor for 
the homeward-bound passage, by the way of Cape 
Horn. 



Niw York, October, 1849. 



CONTENTS 

OP 

THE FIRST VOLUME. 



cAaptKr va*b 

I. The Jacket 1 

II. Homeward Bound 5 

III. A Glance at the principal Divisions into which a Man-of- 

war's Crew is divided 8 

IV. Jack Chase 16 

y. Jack Chase on a Spanish Quarter-deck 23 

VI. The Quarter-deck Officers, Warrant Officers, and Berth- 
deck Underlings of a Man-of-war ; where they live in ' 
the Ship ; how they live ; their social Standing on 
Ship-board ; and what sort of Gentlemen they are . . . 28 

VII. Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper 43 

YIII. Selvagee contrasted with Mad Jack ^ . 47 

IX. Of the Pockets that were in the Jacket .54 

X. From Pockets t>o Pickpockets 59 

XI. The Pursuit of Poetry under DifficuUies 62 

XII. The good or bad Temper of Man-of-war's-men in a great 
degree attributable to their particular Stations and 

Duties aboard Ship 69 

XIII. A Man-of-war Hermit in a Mob 78 

XI v. A Drought in a Man-of-war 83 

XV. A Salt-Junk Club in a Man-of-war, with a Notice to quit . 89 

XVI. General Training in a Man-of-war 101 

XVII. Away ) Second, Third, and Fourth Cutters, away ! . . . 112 

XVIII. A Man-of-war fall as a Nut 117 

XIX. The Jacket aloft 119 

XX. How they sleep in a Man-of-war 124 



CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 

CUArTBR PAOB 

XXI. One Eeason why Man-of-war'a-nxen are generally ehort- 

Uved 128 

XXII. Waah-Day, and House-cleaning in a Man-of-war . . 133 

XXIII. Theatricals in a Man-of-war 140 

XXIV. Introductory to Cape Horn 151 

XXV. The Dog-days off Cape Horn 157 

XXVI. The Pitch of the Cape 163 

XXVII. Some Thoughts growing out of Mad Jack's counter- 
manding his Superior's Order 173 

XXVIII. Edging away 181 

XXIX. The Nightrwatches 187 

XXX. A Peep through a Port-hole at the subterranean Parts 

of a Man-of-war 193 

XXXI. The Gunner under Hatches 199 

XXXII. A Dish of Dunderfiink 206 

XXXIII. A Flogging 210 

XXXIY. Some of the evil Effects of Flogging 218 

XXXV. Flogging not lawful 22$ 

XXXVI. Is Flogging necessaiyl 232 

XXXVII. Some superior old "London Dock" from the Wine- 
coolers of Neptune 240 

XXXVIII. The Chaplain and Chapel in a Man-of-war .... 244 
XXXIX. The Frigate in Harbour— The Boats— Grand State 

Beception of the Commodore 251 

XL. Some of the Ceremonies in a Man-of-war unnecessary 

and injurious 260 

XLI. A Man-of-war Libraiy 263 

XLII. Killing Time in a Man-of-war in Harbour .... 267 

XLIII. Smuggling in a Man-of-war 278 

XLIV. A Knave in Office in a Man-of-war 287 

XLV. Publishing Poetiy in a Man-of-war 303 

XLVI. The Commodore on the Poop, and one of "the People" 

under the Hands of the Surgeon 806 

XLVII. An Auction in a Man-of-war 313 



WHITE-JACKET. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE JACKET. 



It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in 
all conscience, as the sequel will show. 

The way I came by it was this. 

When our Mgate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru 
— ^her last harbour in the Pacific — I found myself with- 
out a gregOy or sailor^s surtout ; and as, toward the end 
of a three years^ cruise, no pea-jackets could be had 
from the purser's steward; and being bound for Cape 
Horn, some sort of a substitute was indispensable ; I 
employed myself, for several days, in manufacturing an 
outlandish garment of my own devising, to shelter me 
from the boisterous weather we were so soon to en- 
counter. 

It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or 
rather shirt ; which, spreading on deck, I folded double 



VOL. I. B 



<^ ' 



2 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

at the bosom^ and by then making a continuation of 
the slit there, opened it lengthwise — much as you would 
cut a leaf in the last new novel. The gash being made, 
a metamorphosis took place, transcending any related 
by Ovid. For, presto ! the shirt was a coat ! — a strange- 
looking coat, to be sure; of a Quakerish amplitude 
about the skirts ; with an infirm, tumble-down collar • 
and a clumsy fulness about the wristbands ; and white, 
yea, white as a shroud. And my shroud it afterward 
came very near proving, as he who reads further will 
find. 

But, bless me, my fiiend, what sort of a summer 
jacket is this, in which to weather Cape Horn? A very 
tasty, and beautiful white linen garment it may have 
seemed ; but then, people almost universally sport their 
linen next to their skin. 

Very true ; and that thought very early occurred to 
me ; for no idea had I of scudding round Cape Horn in 
my shirt ; for that would have been almost scudding 
under bare poles indeed. 

So, with many odds and ends of patches — old socks, 
old trowser-legs, and the like — I bedamed and be^^ 
quilted the inside of my jacket, till it became, all over, 
stiff and padded, as King James's cotton-stuffed and 
dagger-proof doublet j and no buckram or steel hauberk 
stood up more stoutly. 

So far, very good ; but pray, tell me. White- Jacket, 
how do you propose keeping out the rain and the wet 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 3 

in this quilted grego of yours ? You don^t call this wad 
of old patches a Mackintosh^ do you? — ^You don't pre-> 
tend to say that worsted is water-proof? 

No^ my dear friend ; and that was the deuce of it. 
Water-proof it was not^ no more than a sponge. In- 
deed, with such recklessness had I bequilted my jacket, 
that in a rain-storm I became a universal absorber; 
swabbing bone-dry the very bulwarks I leaned against. 
Of a damp day, my heartless shipmates even used to 
stand up agamst me, so powerful was the capillary 
attraction between this luckless jacket of mine and all 
drops of moisture. I dripped like a turkey a' roasting ; 
and long after the rain-storms were over, and the sun 
showed his face, I still stalked a Scotch mist ; and when 
it was fair weather with others, alas! it was foul 
weather with me. 

Soaked and heavy, what a burden was that jacket to 
carry about, especially when I was sent up aloft ; drag- 
ging myself up, step by step, as if I were weighing the 
anchor. Small time then, to strip, and ring it out in a 
rain, when no hanging back or delay was permitted. 
No, no ; up you go : fat or lean : Lambert or Edson : 
never mind how much avoirdupoise you might weigh. 
And thus, in my own proper person, did many showers 
of rain reascend toward the skies, in accordance with 
the natural laws. 

But here be it known, that I had been terribly dis- 
appointed in carrying out my original plan conoemii^ 

b2 



4 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

this jacket. It had been my intention to make it 
thoroughly impervious, by giving it a coating of paint. 
But bitter fate ever overtakes us unfortunates. So 
much paint had been stolen by the sailors, in daubing 
their overhaul trowsers and tarpaulins, that by the time 
I — an honest man — had completed my quiltings, the 
paint-pots were banned, and put under strict lock and key. 

Said old Brush, the captain of the paint-room — 
^' Look ye. White- Jacket,^^ said he, " ye can^t have 
any paint.^^ 

Such, then, was my jacket : a well-patched, padded, 
and porous one ; and in a dark night, gleaming white, 
as the White Lady of Avenel ! 



THE WORliD TN A MAN-OF-WAE. 



CHAPTER II. 



HOMEWABD-BOUND. 



" All hands up anchor ! Man the capstan ! '' 
" High die ! my lads, we're homeward bound !^^ 
Homeward bound ! — ^harmonious sound ! Were you 
ever homeward bound? — ^No? — Quick ! take the wings 
of the morning, or the sails of a ship, and fly to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. There, tarry a year or 
two ; and then let the gruffest of Boatswains, his lungs 
all goose-skin, shout forth those magical words, and 
you^ll swear "the harp of Orpheus were not more 
enchanting." 

All was ready ; boats hoisted in, stun' sail gear rove, 
messenger passed, capstan-bars in their places, accom- 
modation-ladder below ; and in glorious spirits, we sat 
down to dinner. In the ward-room, the lieutenants 
were passing round their oldest Port, and pledging their 
friends ; in the steerage, the middies were busy raising 
loaB» to liquidate the demands of their laundress, or 
else — in the navy phrase — preparing to pay their 
creditors mth a flying fare-topsail. On the poop, the 



6 WHITE- JACKET; OE, 

captain was looking to windward ; and in his grand^ 
inaccessible cabin^ the high and mighty commodore sat 
silent and stately^ as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona. 

We were aU arrayed in our best and our bravest; 
like strips of blue sky, lay the pure blue collars of our 
frocks upon our shoulders; and our pumps were so 
springy and playfiil, that we danced up and down as we 
dined. 

It was on the gun-deck that our dinners were spread ; 
all along between the guns; and there, as we cross- 
legged sat, you would have thought a hundred farm- 
yards and meadows were nigh. Such a cackling of 
ducks, chickens, and ganders ; such a lowing of oxen, 
and bleating of lambkins, penned up here and there 
along the deck, to provide sea repasts for the officers. 
More rural than naval were the sounds ; continually 
reminding each mother's son of the old paternal home- 
stead in the green old clime; the old arching elms ; the 
hiU where we gambolled; and down by the barley 
banks of the stream where we bathed. 

" All hands up anchor !'' 

When that order was given, how we sprang to the 
bars, and heaved round that capstan; every man a 
Goliath, every tendon a hawser ! — ^round and round-g- 
round, round it spun like a sphere, keeping time with 
our feet to the time of the fifer, till the cable was 
straight up and down, and the ship with her nose in 
the water. 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 7 

" Heave and pall ! unsMp your bars, and make 
sail!^^ 

It was done : — ^bar-men, nipper-men, tierers, veerers, 
idlers and all, scrambled np the ladder to the braces 
and halyards; while, like monkeys in palm-trees, the 
sail-loosers ran out on those broad boughs, our yards ; 
and down fell the sails like white clouds from the ether 
— ^top-sails, top-gallants, and royals ; and away we ran 
with the halyards, till every sheet was distended. 

" Once more to the bars V 

" Heave, my hearties, heave hard V^ 

With a jerk and a yerk, we broke ground ; and up 
to our bows came several thousand pounds of old iron, 
in the shape of our ponderous anchor. 

Where was White- Jacket then ? 

White- Jacket was where he belonged. It was White- 
Jacket that loosed that main-royal, so far up aloft there, 
it looks like a white albatross' wing. It was White- 
Jacket that was taken for an albatross himself, as he 
flew out on the giddy yard-arm I 



8 WHITK-JACEET ; OB, 



CHAPTER III. 



A GLAKOE AT THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS, INTO WHICH A MAN-OP-WARS 

CREW IS DIVIDED. 



Having just designated the place where White- Jacket 
belonged, it must needs be related how White-Jacket 
came to belong there. 

Every one knows that in merchantmen the seamen 
are divided into watches — starboard and larboard — 
taking their turn at the ship^s duty by night. This 
plan is followed in all men-of-war. But in all men-of- 
war, besides this division, there are others, rendered 
indispensable from the great number of men, and the 
necessity of precision and discipline. Not only are 
particular bands assigned to the three tops, but in 
getting under weigh, or any other proceeding requiring 
all hands, particular men of these bands are assigned 
to each yard of the tops. Thus, when the order is 
given to loose the main-royal, White-Jacket flies to 
obey it ; and no one but he. 

And not only are particular bands stationed on the 
three decks of the ship at such times, but particular 
men of those bands are also assigned to particular 



»-—- 



■ 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 9 

duties. Also^ in tacking ship, reefing top-sails, or 
" coming to/' every man of a firigate's five-hundred- 
strong, knows his own special place, and is inMibly 
found there. He sees nothing else, attends to nothing 
else, and will stay there till grim death or an epaulette 
orders him away. Yet there are times when, through 
the negligence of the officers, some exceptions are 
found to this rule. A rather serious circumstance 
growing out of such a case will be related in some 
future chapter. 

Were it not for these regulations a man-of-war's 
crew would be nothing but a mob, more ungovernable 
stripping the canvass in a gale than Lord Greorge Gor- 
don's tearing down the lofty house of Lord Mansfield. . 

But this is not all. Besides White- Jacket's office as 
looser of the main-royal, when all hands were called to 
make sail; and besides his special offices, in tacking 
ship, coming to anchor, &c. ; he permanently belonged 
to the Starboard Watch, one of the two primary, grand 
divisions of the ship's company. And in this watch he 
was a main-top-man; that is, was stationed in the main- 
top, with a number of other seamen, always in readi- 
ness to execute any orders pertaining to the main-mast, 
from above the main-yard. For, including the main- 
yard, and below it to the deck, the main- mast belongs 
to another detachment. 

Now the fore, main, and mizen-top-men of each 
watch — Starboard and Larboard — are at sea respectively 

b3 



10 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

subdivided into Quarter Watches ; whicli regularly 
relieve each other in the tops to which they may 
belong ; while, collectively, they relieve the whole 
Larboard Watch of topmen. 

Besides these topmen, who are always made up of 
active sailors, there are Sheet- Anchor-men— old vete- 
rans all— rwhose place is on the forecastle; the fore- 
yard, anchors, and all the sails on the bowsprit being 
under their care. 

They are an old weather-beaten set, culled £rom the 
most experienced seamen on board. These are the 
fellows that sing you ^' The Bay of Biscay Oh !" and 
'^Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling /^* *^ Cease, 
rude Boreas, blustering railerl" who, when ashore, at 
an eating-house, call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. 
These are the fellows, who spin interminable yarns 
about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge; and cany about 
their persons bits of '' Old Ironsides,'^ as Catholics do 
the wood of the true cross. These are the fellows, that 
some officers never pretend to damn, however much 
they may anathematize others. These are the fellows, 
that it does your soul good to look at; — hearty old 
members of the Old Guard ; grim sea grenadiers, who, 
in tempest time, have lost many a tarpaulin overboard. 
These are the fellows, whose society some of the young- 
ster midshipmen much affect; from whom they learn 
their best seamanship ; and to whom they look up as 
veterans; if so be, that they have any reverence in 



• THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OP-WAR. 11 

their souls^ which is not the case with all midship- 
men. 

Then, there is the After-guard, stationed on the 
Quarter-deck; who, under the Quarter-Masters and 
Quarter-Gunners, attend to the main-sail and spanker, 
and help haul the main-brace, and other ropes in the 
stem of the vessel. 

The duties assigned to the After-Guard*s-men being 
comparatively light and easy, and but little seamanship 
being expected from them, they are composed chiefly 
of landsmen ; the least robust, least hardy, and least 
saQor-like of the crew; and being stationed on the 
Quarter-deck, they are generally selected with some eye 
to their personal appearance. Hence, they are mostly 
slender young fellows, of a genteel figure and gentle- 
manly address ; not weighing much on a rope, but 
weighing considerably in the estimation of all foreign 
ladies who may chance to visit the ship. They lounge 
away the most part of their time, in reading novels and 
romances ; talking over their lover affairs ashore ; and 
comparing notes concerning the melancholy and senti- 
mental career which drove them — poor young gentlemen 
— ^into the hard-hearted navy. Indeed, many of them 
show tokens of having moved in very respectable society. 
They always maintain a tidy exterior; and express an 
abhorrence of the tar-bucket, into which they are 
seldom or never called to dip their digits. And pluming 
themselves upon the cut of their trowsers, and the 



12 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

glossiness of their tarpaulins^ from the rest of the ship's 
company, they acquire the name of "sea-dandies'^ and 
" sUk'Sock-ff entry.'' 

Then, there are the fVaisters, always stationed on the 
gun-deck. These haul aft the fore and main-sheets, 
besides being subject to ignoble duties; attending to 
the drainage and sewerage below hatches. These fellows 
are all Jimmy Duxes — ^sorry chaps, who never put foot 
in ratlin, or venture above the bulwarks. Inveterate 
"sons of farmers/' with the hay-seed yet in their hair, 
they are consigned to the congenial superintendence of 
the chicken-coops, pig-pens, and potato-lockers. These 
are generally placed amidships, on the gun-deck of a 
frigate, between the fore and main hatches ; and com- 
prise so extensive an area, that it much resembles the 
market-place of a small town. The melodious sounds 
thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of 
the Waistersj reminding them of their old paternal 
pig-pens and potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and 
bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing 
else is good enough for a Waister. 

Three decks down — spar-deck, gun-deck, and berth- 
deck — and we come to a parcel of Troglodites or 
" holders/' who burrow, like rabbits in warrens, among 
the water-tanks, casks, and cables. like Cornwall 
miners, wash off the soot from their skins, and they are 
all pale as ghosts. Unless upon rare occasions, they 
seldom come on deck to sun themselves. They may 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 13 

circumnavigate the world fifty times, and they see 
about as much of it as Jonah did in the whalers belly. 
They are a lazy, lumpish, torpid set ; and when going 
ashore after a long cruise, come out into the day, like 
terrapins from their caves, or bears in the spring, from 
tree-trunks. No one ever knows the names of these 
fellows ; after a three years^ voyage, they still remain 
strangers to you. In time of tempests, when all hands 
are called to save ship, they issue forth into the gale, 
like the mysterious old men of Paris, during the mas- 
sacre of the Three Days of September; every one 
marvels who they are, and whence they come; they 
disappear as mysteriously ; and are seen no more, imtil 
another general commotion. 

Such are the principal divisions into which a man- 
of-war's crew is divided ; but the inferior allotments of 
duties are endless, and would require a German com- 
mentator to chronicle. 

We say nothing here of Boatswain's mates. Gun- 
ner's mates, Carpenter's mates. Sail-maker's mates> 
Armorer's mates, Master-at-Arms, Ship's corporals. 
Cockswains, Quarter-masters, Quarter-gunners, Cap- 
tains of the Forecastle, Captains of the Fore-top, 
Captains of the Main-top, Captains of the Mizen-top, 
Captains of the After-Guard, Captains of the Main- 
Hold, Captains of the Fore-Hold, Captains of the Head, 
Coopers, Painters, Tinkers, Commodore's Steward, 
Captain's Steward, Ward-Room Steward, Steerage 



14 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

Steward, Commodore^s cook, Captaia^s cook. Officers' 
cook. Cooks of the range. Mess-cooks, haxnniock-boys, 
messenger-boys, cot-boys, loblolly-boys, and number- 
less others, whose functions are fixed and peculiar. 

It is from this endless subdivision of duties in a 
man-of-war, that, upon first entering one, a sailor has 
need of a good memory, and the more of an Arithme- 
tician he is, the better. 

White- Jacket, for one, was a long time rapt in cal-; 
culations, concerning the various ^'numbers'' allotted 
him by the First Luff, otherwise known as the First 
Lieutenant. In the first place, White-Jacket was 
given the number of his mess ; then, his ship^s number, 
or the number to which he must answer when the 
watch-roll is called; then, the niunber of his hammock; 
then, the number of the gun to which he was assigned; 
besides a variety of other numbers ; all of which would 
have taken Jedediah Buxton himself some time to 
arrange in battalions, previous to adding up. All these 
numbers, moreover, must be well remembered, or woe 
betide you. 

Consider, now, a merchant-sailor altogether unused 
to the tumult of a man-of-war, for the first time step- 
ping on board, and given all these numbers to recollect. 
Already, before hearing them, his head is half stunned 
with the unaccustomed sounds ringing in his ears; 
which ears seem to him like belfries full of tocsins. 
On the gun-deck, a thousand scythed chariots seem 



TIIB WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 16 

passing; he heaxs the tread of armed marines; the 
clash of cutlasses and curses. The Boatswain's mates 
whistle round him^ like hawks screaming in a gale^ 
and the strange noises under decks^ are like volcanic 
rumblings in a mountain. He dodges sudden sounds^ 
as a raw recruit falling bombs. 

Well-nigh useless to him^ now^ all previous circum- 
navigations of this terraqueous globe ; of no account 
his arctic^ antarctic^ or equinoctial experiences; his 
gales off Beachy Head^ or his dismastings off Hatteras. 
He must begin anew; he knows nothing; Greek and 
Hebrew could not help him^ for the language he must 
learn has neither grammar nor lexicon. 

Mark him^ as he advances along the files of old 
ocean-warriors ; mark his debased attitude^ his depre- 
cating gestures^ his Sawney stare^ like a Scotchman in 
London in King James's time ; his — " cry your mercy ^ 
noble seignorsl** He is wholly nonplused^ and con- 
founded. And when^ to crown all^ the First Lieutenant^ 
whose business it is to welcome all new-comers^ and 
assign them their quarters ; when this officer — none of 
the most bland or amiable either — gives him number 
after number to recollect— 246— 139 — 478— 361— the 
poor fellow feels like decamping. 

Study^ then^ your mathematics^ and cultivate all 
your memories^ oh ye I who think of cruising in men- 
of-war« 



16 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 



CHAPTER IV. 



JACK CHASE. 



The first night out of port was a clear, moonlight 
one ; the frigate gliding through the water, with all her 
batteries. 

It was my Quarter Watch in the top, and there I 
reclined on the best possible terms with my top-mates. 
Whatever the other seamen might have been, these 
were a noble set of tars, and well worthy an introduction 
to the reader. 

First and foremost was Jack Chase, our noble First 
Captain of the Top. He was a Briton, and a true-blue ; 
tall and well-knit, with a clear open eye, a fine broad 
brow, and an abounding nut-brown beard. No man 
ever had a better heart or a bolder. He was loved by 
the seamen, and admired by the officers; and even 
when the Captain spoke to him, it was with a slight 
air of respect. Jack was a &ank and charming man. 

No one could be better company in forecastle or 
saloon; no man told such stories, sang such songs, or 
with greater alacrity sprang to his duty. Indeed, there 
was only one thing wanting about him, and that was a 
finger of his left hand, which finger he had lost at the 
great battle of Navarino. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. • 17 

He had a high conceit of his profession as a seaman ; 
and being deeply versed in all things pertaining to a 
man-of-war^ was universally regarded as an oracle. The 
main-top, over which he presided, was a sort of Delphi, 
to which many pilgrims ascended, to have their per- 
plezities or differences settled. 

There was such an abounding air of good sense and 
good feeling about the man, that he who could not love 
him, would thereby pronounce himself a knave. I 
thanked my sweet stars that kind fortune had placed 
me near him, though under him, in the frigate ; and 
from the outset Jack and I were fast Mends. 

Wherever you may be now rolling over the blue 
billows, dear Jack ! take my best love along with you ; 
and God bless you, wherever you go ! 

Jack was a gentleman. What though his hand was 
hard, so was not his heart, too often the case with soft 
palms. His manners were easy and free ; none of the 
boisterousness, so common to tars ; and he had a polite, 
courteous way of saluting you, if it were only to borrow 
your knife. Jack had read aU the verses of Byron, and 
all the romances of Scott. He talked of Bob Boy, 
Don Juan, and Pelham ; Macbeth and Ulysses ; but, 
above aU things, was an ardent admirer of Camoens. 
Parts of the Lusiad he could recite in the original. 
Where he had obtained his wonderful accomphshments, 
it is not for me, his humble subordinate, to say. Enough, 
that those accomplishments were so various; the Ian- 



18 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

gnages he could converse in^ so numerous^ that he 
more than furnished an example of that saying of 
Charles the Fifth — he who speaks five languages is as 
good as five men. But Jack^ he was better than a 
hundred common mortals ; Jack was a whole phalanx 
an entire army; Jack was a thousand strong; Jack 
would have done honour to the Queen of England's 
drawing-room ; Jack must have been a by-blow of some 
British Admiral of the Blue. A finer specimen of the 
island race of Englishmen could not have been picked 
out of Westminster Abbey of a coronation day. 

His whole demeanour was in strong contrast to that 
of one of the captains of the fore-top. This man^ though 
a good seaman^ furnished an example of those insuf- 
ferable Britons, who, while preferring other countries 
to their own as places of residence, still, overflow with 
all the pompousness of national and individual vanity 
combined. " When I was on board the Audacious '^ — 
for a long time, was almost the invariable exordium to 
the fore-top captain's most cursory remarks. It is 
often the custom of men-of-war's men, when they deem 
anything to be going on wrong aboard ship, to refer to 
last cruisBj when of course everything was done ship- 
shape and Bristol fashion. And by referring to the 
Audacious — ^an expressive name, by the way — ^the fore- 
top captain meant a ship in the English navy, in which 
he had had the honour of serving. So continual were 
his allusions to this craft with the amiable name, that 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-Of-WAK. 19 

at lajBt^ the Audacums was voted a bore by his ship- 
mates. And one hot afternoon^ during a cahn^ when 
the fore-top captain^ like many others^ was standing 
still and yawning on the spar-deck^ Jack Chase^ his own 
countryman^ came up to him^ and pointing at his open 
mouthy politely inquired, whether that .was the way they 
caught ^ie« in Her Britannic Majesty^s ship, the Atida- 
ciaus ? After that, we heard no more of the craft. 

Now, the tops of a frigate are quite spacious and cosy. 
They are railed in behind so as to form a kind of bal- 
cony, very pleasant of a tropical night. From twenty 
to thirty loungers may agreeably recline there, cushion- 
ing themselves on old sails and jackets. We had rare 
* 

times in that top. We accounted ourselves the best 
seamen in the ship ; and from our airy perch, literally 
looked down upon the landlopers below, sneaking about 
the deck, among the guns. In a large degree, we 
nourished that feeling of esprit de corps, always per- 
vading, more or less, the various sections of a man-of- 
war's crew. We main-top-men were brothers, one and 
all ; and we loaned ourselves to each other with all the 
freedom in the world. 

Nevertheless, I had not long been a member of this 
fraternity of fine fellows, ere I discovered that Jack 
Chase, our captain, was — ^like all prime favourites and 
oracles among men — ^a little bit of a dictator; not 
peremptorily, or aimoyingly so, but amusingly intent 
lon egotistically mending our manners and improving 



20 WHITE- JACKET j OR, 

our taste, so that we might reflect credit upon our 
tutor. 

He made us all wear our hats at a particular angle — 
instructed us in the tie of our neckerchiefs ; and pro- 
tested against our wearing vulgar dungeree trowsers, 
besides giving usJessons in seamanship, and solemnly 
conjuring us for ever to eschew the company of any 
sailor we suspected of having served in a whaler. 
Against all whalers, indeed, he cherished the unmi- 
tigated detestation of a true man-of-war's man. Poor 
Tubbs can testify to that. 

Tubbs was in the After-guard; a long, lank Vine- 
yarder, eternally talking of line-tubs, Nantucket, sperm 
oil, stove boats, and Japan. Nothing could silence him; 
and his comparisons were ever invidious. 

Now, with all his soul. Jack abominated this Tubbs. 
He said he was vulgar, an upstart — Devil take him, he's 
been in a whaler. But, like many men who have been 
where you haven't been, or seen what you haven't seen, 
Tubbs, on account of his whaling experiences, absolutely 
afiPected to look down upon Jack, even as Jack did upon 
him ; and this it was that so enraged our noble captain. 

One night, with a peculiar meaning in his eye, he 
sent me down on deck to invite Tubbs up aloft for a 
chat. Flattered by so marked an honour — ^for we were 
somewhat fastidious, and did not extend such invitations 
to everybody — Tubbs quickly mounted the rigging, 
looking rather abashed at finding himself in the august 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OP-WAE. 21 

presence of the assembled Quarter-watch of main-top- 
men. Jack^s courteous manner^ however, very soon 
relieved his embarrassment ; but it is no use to be cour- 
teous to some men in this world. Tubbs belonged to 
that category. No sooner did the bumpkin feel himself 
at ease, than he launched out, as usual, into tremendous 
laudations of whalemen j declaring that whalemen alone 
deserved the name of sailors. Jack stood it some time ; 
but when Tubbs came down upon men-of-war, and 
particularly upon main-top-men, his sense of propriety 
was so outraged, that he launched into Tubbs like a 
forty-two pounder. 

'^ Why, yoa limb of Nantucket ! you train-oil man ! 
you sea-tallow strainer ! you bobber after carrion ! do 
you pretend to vilify a man-of-war ? "Why, you lean 
rogue, you, a man-of-war is to whalemen as a metropo- 
lis to shire-towns and sequestered hamlets. Her^s the 
place for life and' commotion; her^s the place to be 
gentlemanly and jolly. And what did you know, you 
bumpkin I before you came on board this Andrew 
Miller ? What knew you of gim-deck, or orlop, mus- 
tering round the capstan, beating to quarters, and pip- 
ing to dinner? Did you ever roll to grog on board 
your greasy ballyhoo of blazes ? Did you ever winter 
at Mahon? Did you ever ^laah and carry?' Why, 
what are even a merchant-seaman's sorry yams of 
voyages to China after tea-caddies, and voyages to the 
West Indies after sugar puncheons, and voyages to the 



22 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

Shetlands after seal-skins — ^what are even these yams, 
you Tubbs you ! to higb life in a man-of-war ? "Why, 
you dead-eye ! I have sailed with lords and marquises 
for captains ; and the King of the Two Sicilies has passed 
me, as I here stood up at my gun. Bah ! you are fiill 
of the fore-peak and the forecastle ; you are only fa- 
miliar with Burtons and Billy-tackles ; your ambition 
never amounted above pig-killing ! which, in my poor 
opinion, is the proper phrase for whaling ! Topmates ! 
has not this Tubbs here been but a misuser of good oak 
planks, and a vile desecrator of the thrice-holy sea? 
turning his ship, my hearties ! into a fat-kettle, and the 
ocean into a whale-pen ? Begone, you graceless, god- 
less knave ! pitch him over the top there. White- Jacket!" 

But there was no necessity for my exertions. Poor 
Tubbs, astounded at these falminations, was already 
rapidly descending by the rigging. 

This outburst on the part of my noble friend. Jack, 
made me shake all over, spite of my padded surtout ; 
and caused me to o£Per up devout thanksgivings, that in 
no evil hour had I divulged the fact of having myself 
served in a whaler ; for having previously marked the 
prevailing prejudice of man-of-war's men to that much- 
maligned class of mariners, I had wisely held my peace 
concerning stove boats on the coast of Japan. 



TEE VOBLD m A HAN-OF-WA£. 23 



CHAPTER V. 

JACK CHASB ON ▲ SPANISH QUARTKB-PECK. 

Heke^ I must frankly tell a story about Jack, which, 
as touching his honour and integrity, I am sure, will 
not work against him in any charitable man's estima- 
tion. On this present cruise of the frigate Neversink, 
Jack had deserted; and after a certain interval, had 
been captured. 

But with what purpose had he deserted? To avoid 
naval discipline ? to riot in some abandoned sea-port ? 
for love of some worthless signorita ? Not at alL He 
abandoned the frigate frt)m far higher and nobler, nay, 
glorious motives. Though bowing to naval discipline 
afloat, yet ashore, he was a stickler for the Bights of 
Man, and the liberties of the world. He went to draw 
a partisan blade in the civil commotions of Peru, and 
befriend, heart and soul, what he deemed the cause of 
the Bight. 

At the time, his disappearance excited the utmost 
astonishment among the officers, who had little sus- 
pected him of any such conduct as deserting. 

" What ? Jack, my great man of the main-top, 
gone \" cried the Captain : " Fll not believe it.'* 



24 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

'^ Jack Chase cut and run!^^ cried a sentimental 
middy. " It must have been all for love, then ; the 
signoritas have turned his heai^^ 

" Jack Chase not to be found ?" cried a growling old 
sheet-anchor-man, one of your malicious prophets of 
past events : ^' I thought so ; I know^d it ; I could 
have sworn it — just the chap to make sail on the sly. 
I always s^pected him.^' 

Months passed away, and nothing was heard of Jack ; 
till at last the frigate came to anchor on the coast, 
alongside of a Peruvian sloop of war. 

Bravely clad in the Peruvian uniform, and with a fine, 
mixed martial and naval step, a tall, striking figure of 
a long-bearded officer was descried, promenading the 
quarter-deck of the stranger, and superintending the 
salutes, which are exchanged between national vessels 
on these occasions. 

This fine officer touched his laced hat most courte-« 
ously to our captain, who, after returning the compli- 
ment, stared at him, rather impolitely, through his 
spy-glass. 

" By Heaven \" he cried at last — " it is he — he can^t 
disguise his walk — ^that^s his beard ; Fd know him in 
Cochin China. Man the first cutter there ! Lieutenant 
Blink, go on board that sloop of war, and fetch me yon 
officer/^ 

All hands were aghast. — What ? when a piping-hot 
peace was between the United States and Peru, to send 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OI-WAE. 25 

an armed body on board a Peruvian sloop of war, and 
seize one of its officers, in broad daylight ? — Monstrous 
infraction of the Law of Nations ! What would Vattel 
say? 

But Captain Claret must be obeyed. So off went 
the cutter, every man armed to the teeth, the lieutenant 
commanding having secret instructions, and the mid- 
shipmen attending looking ominously wise, though, in 
truth, they conld not tell what was coming. 

Gaining the sloop of war, the Ueutenant was received 
with the customary honours ; but by this time the tall, 
bearded officer had disappeared from the Quarter-deck. 
The Lieutenant now inquired for the Peruvian Captain; 
and being shown into the cabin, made known to him, 
that on board his vessel was a person belonging to the 
United States Ship Neversink ; and his orders were, to 
have that person delivered up instanter. 

The foreign captain curled his mustache in astonish- 
ment and indignation; he hinted something about 
beating to quarters, and chastising this piece of Yankee 
insolence. 

But resting one gloved hand upon the table, and 
playing with his sword-knot, the Lieutenant, with a 
bland firmness, repeated his demand. At last, the 
whole case being so plainly made out, and the person in 
question being so accurately described, even to a mole 
on his cheek, there remained nothing but immediate 
compliance. 

VOL. I, c 



26 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

So the fine-looking, bearded officer, who had so 
courteously doffed his chapeau to our Captain, but 
disappeared upon the arrival of the Lieutenant, was 
summoned into the cabin, before his superior, who 
addressed him thus : — 

'^ Don John, this gentleman declares, that of right 
you belong to the frigate Neversink. Is it so?" 

"It is even so, Don Sereno," said Jack Chase, 
proudly folding his gold-laced coat-sleeves across his 
chest — "and as there is no resisting the frigate, 
I comply. — Lieutenant Blink, I am ready. Adieu! 
Don Sereno, and Madre de Dios protect you! You 
have been a most gentlemaoly friend and captain to 
me. I hope you will yet thrash your beggarly foes.*' 

With that he turned ; and entering the cutter, was 
pulled back to the frigate, and stepped up to Captain 
Claret, where that gentleman stood on the quarter- 
deck. 

" Your servant, my fine Don," said the Captain, 
ironically lifting his chapeau, but regarding Jack at 
the same time with a look of intense displeasure. 

" Your most devoted and penitent Captain of the 
Main-top, sir; and one who, in his very humility of 
contrition, is yet proud to call Captain Claret his 
commander," said Jack, making a glorious bow, and 
then tragically flinging overboard his Peruvian sword. 

" Reinstate him at once," shouted Captain Claret — 
" and now, sir, to your duty ; and discharge that well 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 27 

to the end of the cruise^ and you will hear no more of 
your having ran away/^ 

So Jack went forward among crowds of admiring 
tars, who swore by his nut-brown beard^ which had 
amazingly lengthened and spread during his absence. 
They divided his laced hat and coat among them ; and. 
on their shoulders, carried him in triumph along the 
gun-deck. 



c2 



28 WHITE-JACKET J OE, 



CHAPTER VI. 

4 

THE QUABTER-DEOK OFFICBBS, WARBAXTT OFFICBBS, AND BEBTH-DXCK nin>ER. 
LINOS OF A ICAN-OF-WAK ; WHBBB THST LIYK IN THE SHIP; HOW THST 
LIVE ; THEIR SOOIAL STANDING ON SHIP-BOARD ; AND WHAT SORT OF QEN- 
TLEMEN THET ARE. 

Some account has been given of the various divisions 
into which our crew was divided; so it may be well to 
say something of the officers ; who they are^ and what 
are their functions. 

Our ship^ be it known^ was the flag-ship ; that is^ 
we sported a broad pennant, or bougee, at the main^ in 
token that we carried a Commodore — the highest rank 
of officers recognised in the American navy. The 
bougee is not to be confounded with the long pennant, 
or coach-whip, a tapering, serpentine streamer worn by 
all men-of-war. 

Owing to certain vague, republican scruples, about 
creating great officers of the navy, America has thus 
far had no admirals; though, as her ships of war 
increase, they may become indispensable. This will 
assuredly be the case, should she ever have occasion to 
employ large fleets ; when she must adopt something 
like the English plan, and introduce three or four 
grades of flag-officers, above a Commodore — ^Admirals, 



^999i 



^^ 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 29 

Vice- Admirals, and Rear- Admirals of Squadrons; 
distinguished by the colours of their flags, — ^red, white, 
and blue, corresponding to the centre, van, and rear. 
These rank respectively with Generals, Lieutenant 
Generals, and Majop Generals in the army; just as 
a Commodore takes rank with a Brigadier General. 
So that the same prejudice which prevents the Ame- 
rican Government from creating Admirals should have 
precluded the creation of all army officers above 
a Brigadier. 

An American Commodore, like an English Commo- 
dore, or the French Chef d^Escadrey is but a senior 
Captain, temporarily commanding a small number of 
ships, detached for any special purpose. He has no 
permanent rank, recognised by Government, above his 
captaincy; though once employed as a Commodore, 
usage and courtesy unite in continuing the title. 

Our Commodore was a gallant old man, who had 
seen service in his time. When a lieutenant, he served 
in the Late War with England ; and in the gun-boat 
actions on the Lakes near New Orleans, just previous 
to the grand land engagements, received a musket-ball 
in his shoulder ; which, with the two balls in his eyes, 
he carries about with him to this day. 

Often, when I looked at the venerable old warrior, 
doubled up from the eflfect of his wound, I thought 
what a curious, as well as painful sensation it must be, 
to have one's shoulder a lead-mine ; though, sooth to 



30 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

say, so many of us civilized mortals convert our mouths 
into Golcondas. 

On account of this wound in his shoulder, our Com- 
modore had a body-servant^s pay allowed him, in addi- 
tion to his regular salary. I cannot say a great deal, 
personally, of the Commodore; he never sought my 
company at all ; never extended any gentlemanly 
courtesies. 

But though I cannot say much of him personally, I 
can mention something of him in his general character, 
as a flag-officer. In the first place, then, I have serious 
doubts, whether, for the most part, he was not dumb ; 
for, in my hearing, he seldom or never uttered a word. 
And not only did he seem dumb himself, but his pre- 
sence possessed the strange power of making other 
people dumb for the time. His appearance on the 
Quarter-deck seemed to give every officer the lock- 
jaw. 

Another phenomenon about him was the strange 
manner in which every one shunned him. At the first 
sign of those epaulets of his on the weather side of the 
poop, the officers there congregated invariably shrunk 
over to leeward, and left him alone. Why was this? 
Why not be companionable with his officers ? The 
reason probably was, that, like all high functionaries, 
our Commodore deemed it indispensable religiously to 
sustain his dignity; one of the most troublesome things 
in the world, and one calling for the greatest self- 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OE-WAE. 31 

denial And the constant watch^ and many-sided 
guardedness^ whicli this sustaining of a Commodore's 
dignity requires, plainly enough shows that, apart from 
the common dignity of manhood, Commodores, in gene- 
ral, possess no real dignity at all. True, it is expedient 
for crowned heads, generalissimos. Lord-high-admirals, 
and Commodores, to carry themselves straight, and 
beware of the spinal complaint ; but it is not the less 
veritable, that it is a piece of assumption, exceedingly 
uncomfortable to themselves, and ridiculous to an en- 
lightened generation. 

Now, how many rare good fellows there were among 
us main-top-men, who, invited into his cabin over a 
social bottle or two, would have rejoiced our old Com- 
modore^s heart, and caused that ancient wound of his to 
heal up at once. 

Come, come. Commodore, don't look so sour, old boy; 
step up aloft here into the top, and we'll spin you a 
sociable yam. 

Truly, I thought myself much happier in that white 
jacket of mine, than our old Commodore in his dignified 
epaulets. 

One thing, perhaps, that more than any thing else 
helped to make our Commodore so melancholy and for- 
lorn, was the fact of his having so little to do. For as 
the frigate had a captain ; of course, so far as she was 
concerned, our Commodore was a supernumerary. What 
abundance of leisure he must have had, during a three 



32 WHITE- JACKET ; OE^ 

years* cruise I how indefinitely he might have been 
improving his mind 1 

But as every one knows that idleness is the hardest 
work in the world, so our Commodore was specially 
provided with a gentleman to assist him. This gentle- 
man was called the Commodores secretary. He was a 
remarkably urbane and polished man ; with a v^ 
graceful exterior, and looked much like an Ambassador 
Extraordinary from Versailles. He messed with the 
Lieutenants in the Ward-room, where he had a state- 
room, elegantly furnished as the private cabinet of 
Felham. .His cot-boy used to entertain the sailors with 
all manner of stories about the silver-keyed flutes and 
flageolets, fine oil paintings, morocco bound volumes, 
Chinese chess-men, gold shirt-buttons, enameled pencil 
cases, extraordinary fine French boots with soles no 
thicker than a sheet of scented note-paper, embroidered 
vests, incense-burning sealing wax, alabaster statuettes 
of Venus and Adonis, tortoise-shell snuff-boxes, inlaid 
toilet-cases, ivory-handled hair-brushes and mother-of- 
pearl combs, and a hundred other luxurious appendages 
scattered about this magnificent secretary's state-room. 

I was a long time in finding out what this secretary's 
duties comprised. But it seemed, he wrote the Com- 
modore's dispatches for Washington, and also was his 
general amanuensis. Nor was this a very light duty, 
at times ; for some Commodores, though they do not 
say a great deal on board-ship, yet they have a vast 



l^iM^^^^^v^m^HM*^ 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 88 

deal to write. Very often^ the regimental orderly, sta- 
tioned at our Commodore's cabin-door, would touch his 
hat to the First Lieutenant, and with a mysterious air 
hand him a note. I always thought these notes must 
contain most important matters of state ; until one day, 
seeing a slip of wet, torn paper in a scupper-hole, I read 
the following : — 

'' Sir, you will give the people pickles to-day with 
their fresh meat. 

" To Lieutenant Bridewell. 

*' By command of the Commodore. 

'^ AnoLPHUS Dashman, Priv. Sec.'* 

This was a new revelation ; for, from his almost im- 
mutable reserve, I had supposed that the Commodore 
never meddled immediately with the concerns of the 
ship, but left all that to the captain. But the longer 
we live, the more we learn of Commodores. 

Turn we now to the second officer in rank, almost 
supreme, however, in the internal affairs of his ship. 
Captain Claret was a large, portly man, a Harry the 
Eighth afloat, bluff and hearty; and as kingly in his 
cabin as Harry on his throne. For a ship is a bit of 
terra firma cut off from the main ; it is a state in its^; 
and the captain is its king. 

It is no limited monarchy, where the sturdy Com- 
mons have a right to petition, and snarl if they please ; 

C3 



84 WHITE- JACKET; OE, 

but almost a despotism^ like the Grand Turk's. The 
captain's word is law ; he never speaks but in the im- 
perative mood. When he stands on his Quarter-deck 
at sea^ he absolutely commands as far as eye can reach. 
Only the moon and stars are beyond his jurisdiction. 
He is lord and master of the sun. 

It is not twelve o'clock till he says so. For when the 
sailing-master^ whose duty it is to take the regular ob- 
servation at noon^ touches his hat, and reports twelve 
o'clock to the officer of the deck, that functionary 
orders a midshipman to repair to the captain's cabin, 
and humbly inform him of the respectful suggestion of 
the sailing-master. 

'' Twelve o'clock reported, sir," says the middy. 

'' Make it so," replies the captain. 

And the bell is struck eight by the messenger-boy, 
and twelve o'clock it is. 

As in the case of the Commodore, when the caption 
visits the deck, his subordinate officers generally beat 
a retreat to the other side ; and, as a general rule, 
would no more think of addressing him, except concern- 
ing the ship, than a lackey would think of hailing the 
Czar of Russia on his throne, and inviting him to tea. 
Perhaps no mortal man has more reason to feel such 
an intense sense of his own personal consequence, as 
the captain of a man-of-war at sea. 

Next in rank comes the First or Senior Lieutenant, 
the chief executive officer. I have no reason to love 



THE WOULD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 85 

the particular gentlem'to who filled that post aboard 
of our frigate, for it was he who refused my petition 
for as much black paint as would render water-proof 
that white-jacket of mine. All my soakings and drench- 
ings lie at his state-room door. I hardly think I shall 
ever forgive him; every twinge of the rheumatism, 
which I still occasionally feel, is directly referable to 
him. The Immortals have a reputation for clemency : 
and they may pardon him ; but he must not dun me to 
be merciful. But my personal feelings toward the man 
shall not prevent me from here doing him justice. In 
most things, he was an excellent seaman ; prompt, loud, 
and to the point; and as such, was well fitted for his 
station. The First Lieutenancy of a frigate demands 
a good disciplinarian, and, every way, an energetic man. 
By the captain he is held responsible for every thing ; 
by that magnate, indeed, he is supposed to be omni- 
present; down in the hold, and up aloft, at one and the 
same time. 

He presides at the head of the Ward-room oflScers* 
table, who are so called from their messing together in 
a part of the ship thus designated. In a frigate it com- 
prises the after-part of the berth-deck. Sometimes it 
goes by the name of the Gun-room, but oftener is called 
the Ward-room. Within, this Ward-room much re- 
sembles a long, wide corridor in a large hotel; numerous 
doors opening on both hands to the private apartments 
of the officers. The first time I had a look at it, the 



36 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

ChaplaLa was seated at the table in the centre, playing 
chess with the Lieutenant of Marines. It was mid-day, 
but the place was lighted by lamps. 

Besides the First Lieutenant, the Ward-room officers 
include the junior lieutenants, in a frigate six or seven 
in number, the Sailing-master, Purser, Chaplain, Sur- 
geon, Marine officers, and Midshipmen's Schoolmaster, 
or "the Professor." They generally form a very 
agreeable club of good fellows; from their diversity of 
character, admirably calculated to form an agreeable 
social whole. The Lieutenants discuss sea-fights, and 
teU anecdotes of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton; the 
Marine officers talk of storming fortresses, and the 
siege of Gibraltar; the Purser steadies this wild conver- 
sation by occasional allusions to the rule of three ; the 
Professor is always charged with a scholarly reflection, 
or an apt line from the classics, generally Ovid: the 
Surgeon's stories of the amputation-table judiciously 
serve to suggest the mortality of the whole party as 
men; while the good chaplain stands ready at all times 
to give them pious counsel and consolation. 

Of course these gentlemen all associate on a footing 
of perfect social equality. 

Next in order come the Warrant or Forward officers, 
consisting of the Soatswain, Gunner, Carpenter, and 
Sail-maker. Though these worthies sport long coats, 
and wear the anchor-button, yet in the estimation of 
the ward-room officers, they are not, technically speak- 



THE WOBU) IN A KAN-OF-WAB. 87 

ing^ rated gentlemen. The First Lieutenant^ Chaplain^ 
or Surgeon^ for example, would never dream of inviting 
them to dinner. In sea parlance, '^ they come in at the 
hawse-holes;'^ they have hard hands; and the carpenter 
and sail-maker practically imderstand the duties which 
they are called upon to superintend. They mess by 
themselves. Invariably four in number, they never 
have need to play whist with a dummy. 

In this part of the category now come the '' reefers,'' 
otherwise ^^ middies," or midshipmen. These boys are 
sent to sea, for the purpose of making commodores; and 
in order to become commodores, many of them deem it 
indispensable forthwith to commence chewing tobacco, 
drinking brandy and water, and swearing at the sailors. 
As they are only placed on board a sea-going ship to go 
to school and learn the duty of a Lieutenant ; and imtil 
qualified to act as such, have few or no special fimctions 
to attend to ; they are little more, while midshipmen, 
than supernumeraries on board. Hence, in a crowded 
frigate, they are so everlastingly crossing the path of 
both men and officers, that in the navy it has become 
a proverb, that a useless feUow is '^ cu much in the way 
as a reefer/^ 

In a gale of wind, when all hands are called, and the 
deck swarms with men, the little ^'middies'' ninning 
about distracted, and having nothing particular to do, 
make it up in vociferous swearing ; exploding all about 
under foot like torpedoes. Some of them are terrible 



38 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

little boys, cocking their caps at alarming angles, and 
looking fierce as young roosters. They are generally 
great consumers of Macassar Oil and the Balm of 
Columbia: they thirst and rage after whiskers; and 
sometimes, applying their ointments, lay themselves out 
in the sun, to promote the fertiHty of their chins. 

As the only way to learn to command, is to learn to 
obey, the usage of a ship of war is such that the mid- 
shipmen are constantly being ordered about by the 
Lieutenants; though, without having assigned them 
their particular destinations, they are always going 
somewhere, and never arriving. In some things they 
almost have a harder time of it than the seamen 
themselves. They are messengers and errand-boys to 
their superiors. 

'^ Mr. Pert,'' cries an officer of the deck, hailing a 
young gentleman forward. Mr. Pert advances, touches 
his hat, and remains in an attitude of deferential sus- 
pense. '^ Go and teU the boatswain I want him.'' And 
with this dignified errand the middy hurries away, 
looking proud as a king. 

The middies live by themselves in the steerage, 
where, nowadays, they dine off a table, spread with at 
cloth. They have a castor at dinner ; they have some 
other little boys (selected from the ship's company) to 
wait upon them; they sometimes drink coffee out of 
china. But for aU these, their modem refinements, in 
some instances the affairs of their club go sadly to rack 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-Of-WAB. 89 

aad ruin. The china is broken; the japanned coffee- 
pot dented like a pewter mug in an ale-house; the 
pronged forks resemble toothpicks (for which they are 
sometimes used); the table-knives are hacked into 
hand-saws ; and the cloth goes to the sail-maker to be 
patched. Indeed^ they are something like coUegiate 
freshmen and sophomores^ hying in the college build- 
ings^ especially so far as the noise they make in their 
quarters is concerned. The steerage buzzes^ hums^ and 
swarms like a hive ; or like an infant-school of a hot 
day^ when the schoolmistress falls asleep with a fly on 
her nose. 

In frigates^ the ward-room — ^the retreat of the Lieu- 
tenauts — ^immediately adjoining the steerage^ is on the 
same deck with it. Frequently^ when the middies^ 
waking early of a mornings as most youngsters do^ 
would be kicking up their heels in their hammocks^ or 
running about in double-reefed night-gowns^ playing 
tag among the " clews ;^' the Senior Lieutenant would 
burst among them with a — ^' Young gentlemen, I am 
astonished. You must stop this sky-larking. Mr. 
Pert, what are you doing at the table there, without 
your pantaloons? To your hammock, sir. Let me see 
no more of this. If you disturb the ward-room again, 
yoimg gentlemen, you shall hear of it.^^ And so say- 
ing, this hoary-headed Senior Lieutenant would retire 
to his cot in his state-room, like the father of a nume- 
rous family after getting up in his dressing-gown and 



40 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

slippers, to quiet a daybreak tumult in his populous 
nursery. 

Having now descended from Commodore to Middy, 
we come lastly to a set of nondescripts, forming also 
a ^^ mess" by themselves, apart from the seamen. Into 
this mess, the usage of a man-of-war thrusts various 
subordinates — including the master-at-arms, purser's 
steward, ship^s corporals, marine sergeants, and ship^s 
yeomen, forming the first aristocracy above the 
sailors. 

The master-at-arms is a sort of high constable and 
schoolmaster, wearing cifeen's clothes, and known by 
his official rattan. He it is whom all sailors hate. 
His, is the universal duty of a universal informer 
and hunter-up of delinquents. On the berth-deck he 
reigns supreme; spying out all grease-spots made by 
the various cooks of the seamen^s messes, and driving 
the laggards up the hatches, when all hands are called. 
It is indispensable that he should be a very Vidocq in 
vigilance. But as it is a heartless, so is it a thankless 
office. Of dark nights, most masters-of-arms keep 
themselves in readiness to dodge forty-two poimd balls, 
dropped down the hatchways near them. 

The ship^s oorporals are this worthy^s deputies and 
ushers. 

The marine sergeants are generally tall fellows with 
unyielding spines and stiff upper lips, and very ex* 
elusive in their tastes and predilections. 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 41 

The ship^s yeoman is a gentleman who has a sort of 
counting-room in a tar-cellar down in the fore-hold. 
More will we said of him anon. 

Except the officers above enumerated^ there are none 
who mess apart &om the seamen. The ''petty officers/^ 
so called; that is^ the Boatswain^s^ Gimner's^ Carpen- 
ter^s^ and Sail-maker's mates^ the Captains of the Tops^ 
of the Forecastle, and of the After-Guard, and of the 
Fore and Main holds, and the Quarter-Masters, all 
mess in common with the crew, and in the American 
navy are only distinguished from the common seamen 
by their sHghtly additional pay. But in the EngHsh 
navy they wear crowns and anchors worked on the 
sleeves of their jackets, by way of badges of office. 
In the French navy they are known by strips of worsted 
worn in the same place, like those designating the 
Sergeants and Corporals in the army. 

Thus it will be seen, that the dinner-table is the 
criterion of rank in our man-of-war world. The Com- 
modore dines alone, because he is the only man of his 
rank in the ship. So too with the Captain; and the 
Ward-room officers, warrant officers, midshipmen, the 
master-at-arms^ mess, and the common seamen ; — aU of 
them, respectively, dine together, because they are 
respectively on a footing of equaUty. 

For the same reason, the Commodore has his own 
steward and cook, who wait upon nobody but him; 
also his own stove, where nothing is cooked but for his 



42 WHITE- JACKET; OE^ 

meals. So, too, witli the Captain. The ward-room 
officers, also, have their own steward and cook ; also, 
the midshipmen. The cooking for these two classes is 
done at a distinct part of the great galley — the forward 
end — a place called " the range.'' This is a wide grate, 
several feet long. 



THE WOAU) IN A ALAM-OF-WAB. 48 



CHAPTER VII. 

BREAKFAST, DINNSB, AND SUPPBB. 

Not only is the dinner-table a criterion of rank 
on board a man-of-war^ but also tbe dinner hour. He 
who dines latest is the greatest man; and he who dines 
earliest is accounted the least. In a flag-ship^ the Com- 
modore generally dines about four or five o^clock ; the 
Captain about three ; the Lieutenants about two ; while 
the people* (by which phrase the conunon seamen are 
specially designated in the nomenclature of the quarter- 
deck), sit down to their salt beef exactly at noon. 

Thus it wiU be seen, that while the two estates of 
sea-kings and sea-lords dine at rather patrician hours — 
and thereby, in the long run, impair their digestive 
functions — the sea-commoners, or '^the people,'^ keep 
up their constitutions, by keeping up the good old- 
fashioned dinner-hour of twelve. 

Twelve o'clock ! It is the natural centre, key-stone 

and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has 

arrived at the top of his hill ; and as he seems to hang 

poised there awhile, before coming down on the other 

side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then 

* In the same nomenclature, they are also especially designated as 
" the men." 



44 WHITE- JACKET j OR, 

stopping to dine; setting an eminent example to all 
mankind. The rest of the day is called afternoon; 
the very sound of which fine old Saxon word conveys 
a feeling of the lee bulwarks and a nap ; a summer- 
sea — soft breezes creeping over it; dreamy dolphins 
gliding in the distance. Afternoon ! the word implies 
that it is an after-piece, coming after the grand drama 
of the day; something to be taken leisurely and lazily. 
But how can this be, if you dine at five? For, after 
all, though Paradise Lost be a noble poem, and we 
man-of-war's men, no doubt, largely partake in the 
immortality of the immortals ; yet, let us candidly con- 

» 

fess it, shipmates, that upon the whole, our dinners are 
the most momentous affairs of these lives we lead 
beneath the moon. What were a day without a 
dinner ?. a dinnerless day ! such a day had better be 
a night. 

Again: twelve o'clock is the natural hour for us 
man-of-war's men to dine, because at that hour the 
very time-pieces we have invented arrive at their ter- 
minus; they can get no ftu^her than twelve; when 
straightway they continue their old rounds again. 
Doubtless, Adam and Eve dined at twelve; and the 
Patriarch Abraham in the midst of his cattle ; and old 
Job with his noon mowers and reapers, in that grand 
plantation of Uz ; and old Noah himself, in the Ark, 
must have gone to dinner at precisely eight bells (noon), 
with aU his floating famiUes and farm-yards. 



THE WORLD IX A MAN-OF-WAE. 45 

But though this antediluvian dinner hour is rgected 
by modem Commodores and Captains^ it still lingers 
among ^'the people^^ under their command. Many 
sensible things banished from high life find an asylum 
among the mob. 

Some Commodores are very particular in seeing to it^ 
that no man on board the ship dare to dine after his (the 
Commodore^s) own dessert is cleared away. — ^Not even 
the Captain. It is said^ on good authority^ that a 
Captain once ventured to dine at five, when the Com- 
modore's hour was four. Next day, as the story goes, 
that Captain received a private note; and in conse- 
quence of that note, dined for the fixture at half-past 
three. 

Though in respect of the dinner hour on board a man* 
of-war, " the people '^ have no reason to complain ; yet 
they have just cause, ahnost for mutiny, in the out- 
rageous hours assigned for their breakfast and supper. 

Eight o'clock for breakfast; twelve for dinner; four 
for supper; and no meals but these; no lunches and 
no cold snacks. Owing to this arrangement (and 
partly to one watch going to their meals before the 
other, at sea), all the meals of the twenty-four hours 
are crowded into a space of less than eight ! Sixteen 
mortal hours elapse between supper and break&st; 
including, to one watch, eight hours on deck ! This is 
barbarous ; any physician will tell you so. Think of 
it ! Sefore the Commodore has dined, you have 



46 white-jacket; or, 

supped. And in Ugh latitudes^ in summer-time^ ybu 
have taken your last meal for the day, and five hours, 
or more, daylight to spare ! 

Mr. Secretary of the Navy, in the name of "the 
people ^^ you should interpose in this matter. Many a 
time have I, a main-top-man, found myself actually 
faint of a tempestuous morning watch, when all my 
energies were demanded — owing to this miserable, 
unphilosophical mode of allotting the government 
meals at sea. We beg of you, Mr. Secretary, not to 
be swayed in this matter by the Honourable Board of 
Commodores, who wiU no doubt tell you that eight, 
twelve, and four are the proper hours for '^ the people" 
to take their meals ; inasmuch, as at these hours the 
watches are relieved. For, though this arrangement 
makes a neater and cleaner thing of it for the officers, 
and looks very nice and superfine on paper, yet it is 
plainly detrimental to health, and in time of war is 
attended with still more serious consequences to the 
whole nation at large. If the necessary researches 
were made, it would perhaps be found that in those 
instances where men-of-war adopting the above-men- 
tioned hours for meals have encountered an enemy at 
night, they have pretty generally been beaten ; that is, 
in those cases where the enemies' meal times were 
reasonable ; which is only to be accounted for by the 
fact, that "the people" of the beaten vessels were 
fighting on an empty stomach instead of a full one. 



THE WOELD IN A. MAN-OF-WAR. 47 



CHAPTER VIII. 

8ELYA6EB CONTRASTED WITH MAD-JAOE. 

Hating glanced at the grand divisions of a man-of- 
war^ let us now descend to specialities; and^ particu- 
larly^ to two of the junior lieutenants; lords and 
noblemen ; members of that House of Peers^ the gun- 
room. There were several young lieutenants on board; 
but from these two — representing the extremes of 
character to be found in their department — ^the nature 
of the other officers of their grade in the Neversink 
must be derived. 

One of these two quarter-deck lords went among the 
sailors by a name of their own devising — Selvagee. 
Of course^ it was intended to be characteristic; and 
even so it was. 

In frigates^ and all large ships of war, when getting 
under weigh, a large rope, called a messenger, is used 
to carry the strain of the cable to the capstan ; so that 
the anchor may be weighed, without the muddy, pon- 
derous cable itself going round the capstan. As the 
cable enters the hawse-hole, therefore, something mii3t 
be constantly used to keep this travelling chain attached 
to this travelling messenger; something that may be 
rapidly wound round both, so as to bind them together. 



qWi^^^N«^«P^W^ 



48 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

The article used is called a aelvagee. And what could 
be better adapted to the purpose? It is a slender^ 
tapering^ unstranded piece of rope; prepared with 
much solicitude ; peculiarly flexible ; and wreathes and 
serpentines round the cable and messenger like an 
elegantly-modeled garter -snake round the twisted 
stalks of a vine. Indeed^ Selvagee is the exact type 
and symbol of a tall^ genteel, limber, spiralizing ex- 
quisite. So much for the deriyation of the name which 
the sailors applied to the Lieutenant. 

From what sea-alcove^ &om what mermaid's milli- 
ner's shop^ hast thou emerged, Selvagee ! with that 
dainty waist and languid cheek ? What heartless step- 
dame drove thee forth^ to waste thy fragrance on the 
salt sea-air ? 

Was it yoUy Selvagee ! that, outward-bound, off Cape 
Horn, looked at Hermit Island through an Opera- 
glass ? Was it you, who thought of proposing to the 
Captain, that when the sails were furled in a gale, 
a few drops of lavender should be dropped in their 
*^ bunts," so that when the canvass was set again, your 
nostrils might not be offended by its musty smell? 
I do not say it was you, Selvagee ; I but deferentially 
inquire. 

In plain prose, Selvagee was one of those officers 
whom the sight of a trim-fitting naval coat had capti- 
vated in the days of his youth. He fancied, that if 
a sea-officer dressed well, and conversed genteelly, he 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAK. 49 

would abimdantly uphold the honour of his flag^ and 
immortalize the tailor that made him. On that rock 
many young gentlemen split. For upon a fiigate's 
quarter-deck^ it is not enough to sport a coat fashioned 
by a Stultz ; it is not enough to be weU braced with 
straps and suspenders ; it is not enough to have sweet 
reminiscences of Lauras and Matildas. It is a right 
down life of hard wear and tear^ and the man who is 
not^ in a good degree^ fitted to become a common sailor 
will never make an officer. Take that to hearty all ye 
naval aspirants. Thrust your arms up to the eljbow in 
pitchy and see how you like it, ere you solicit a warrant. 
Prepare for white squalls, living gales and Typhoons ; 
read accounts of shipwrecks and horrible disasters; 
peruse the Narratives of Byron and Bligh ; familiarize 
yourselves with the story of the English frigate Alceste, 
and the French frigate Medusa. Though you may go 
ashore, now and then, at Cadiz and Palermo ; for every 
day so spent among oranges and ladies, you wiU have 
whole months of rains and gales. 

And even thus did Selvagee prove it. But with all 
the intrepid effeminacy of your true dandy, he still 
continued his Cologne-water baths, and sported his 
lace-bordered handkerchiefs in the very teeth of 
a tempest. Alas, Selvagee I there was no getting the 
lavender out of you. 

But Selvagee was no fool. Theoretically he under- 
stood his profession ; but the mere theory of seamanship 

VOL. I. D 



50 WHITE- JACKET j OE, 

forms but the thousandtli part of what makes a seaman. 
You cannot save a ship by working out a problem in 
the cabin ; the deck is the field of action. 

Well aware of his deficiency in some things^ Selvagee 
never took the trumpet — ^which is the badge of the 
deck officer for the time — ^without a tremulous move- 
ment of the lip^ and an earnest^ inquiring eye to the 
windward. He encouraged those old Tritons, the 
Quarter-masters, to discourse with him concerning the 
likelihood of a squall ; and offcen followed their advice 
as to taking in, or making sail. The smallest favours 
in that way were thankfully received. Sometimes, 
when all the North looked unusually lowering, by 
many conversational blandishments, he would endea- 
vour to prolong his predecessor's stay on deck, after 
that officer's watch had expired. But in fine, steady 
weather, when the Captain would emerge from his 
cabin, Selvagee might be seen, pacing the poop with 
long, bold, indefatigable strides, and casting his eye up 
aloft with the most ostentatious fidelity. 

But vain these pretences; he could not deceive. 
Selvagee ! you know very well, that if it comes on to 
blow pretty hard, the First Lieutenant will be sure to 
interfere with his paternal authority. Every man and 
every boy in the frigate knows, Selvagee, that you are 
no Neptune. 

How unenviable his situation ! His brother officers 
de not in ult him, to be sure^ but sometimes their 



i v^^r^t^m^mmmi^^mmmmm 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAB. 51 

looks are as daggers. The sailors do not laugh at him 
outright; but of dark nights they jeer, when they 
hearken to that mantua-maker's voice ordering a strong 
puU at the main brace^ or hands by the halyards! 
Sometimes, by way of being terrific, and making the 
men jump, Selvagee raps out an oath; but the soft 
bomb stuffed with confectioner's kisses seems to burst 
like a crushed rose-bud diffusing its odours. Selvagee ! 
Selvagee ! take a main-top-man's advice ; and this 
cruise over, never more tempt the sea. 

With this gentleman of cravats and curling irons, 
how strongly contrasts the man who was born in 
a gale ! For in some time of tempest — off Cape Horn 
or Hatteras — Mad Jack must have entered the world — 
such things have been — not with a silver spoon, but 
with a speaking trumpet in his mouth ; wrapped up in 
a caul, as in a main-sail — ^for a charmed life against 
shipwrecks he bears — and crying. Luff! luffy you 
may ! — steady !'-^ort ! World ho ! — Jiere I am ! 

Mad Jack is in his saddle on the sea. That is his 
home ; he would not care much, if another Flood came 
and overflowed the dry land ; for what would it do but 
float his good ship higher and higher, and carry his 
proud nation's flag round the globe, over the very 
capitals of all hostile states ! Then would masts 
surmount spires; and all mankind, like the Chinese 
boatmen in Canton Biver, live in flotillas and fleets, 
and find their food in the sea. 

d2 



52 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

Mad Jack was expressly created and labelled for 
a tar. Five feet nine is his mark^ in his socks ; and 
not weighing over eleven stone before dinner. Like so 
many ship^s shrouds^ his muscles and tendons are all 
set true^ trim^ and taut ; he is braced up fore and aft^ 
like a ship on the wind. His broad chest is a bulk- 
head^ that dams off the gale; and his nose is an 
aquiUne^ that divides it in two, like a keel. His loud, 
lusty lungs are two bel&ies, full of all manner of 
chimes; but you only hear his deepest bray, in the 
height of some tempest — ^Kke the great bell of St. Paul's, 
which only sounds when the King or the Devil is dead. 

Look at him there, where he stands on the poop — 
one foot on^the rail, and one hand on a shroud — his 
head thrown back, and his trumpet like an elephant's 
trunk thrown up in the air. Is he going to shoot dead 
with sound, those fellows on the main-topsail-yard ? 

Mad Jack was a bit of a tyrant — ^they say all good 
officers are — ^but the sailors loved him all round ; and 
would much rather stand fifty watches with him, than 
one with a rose-water sailor. 

But Mad Jack, alas I has one fearful failing. He 
drinks. And so do we all. But Mad Jack, he only 
drinks brandy. The vice was inveterate ; surely, like 
Ferdinand, Count Fathom, he must have been suckled 
at a puncheon. Very often, this bad habit got him 
into very serious scrapes. Twice was he put off duty 
by the Commodore; and once he came near being 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAE, 53 

broken for Us frolics. So far as his efficiency as a sea 
officer was concerned, on shore at least. Jack might 
bouse away as much as he pleased; but afloat it will not 
do at all. 

Now, if he only followed the wise example set by 
those ships of the desert, the camels; and while in 
port, drank for the thirst past, the thirst present, 
and the thirst to come — so that he might cross the 
ocean sober; Mad Jack would get along pretty well. 
Still better, if he would but eschew brandy altogether ; 
and only drink of the limpid white- wine of the rills and 
the brooks. 



54 WHITS-JACKET; OB, 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF THB POCKBTS THAT WERB IN THB JACKBT. 

I MUST make some further mentioii of that white 
jacket of mine. 

And here be it known — ^by way of introduction to 
what is to follow — that to a common sailor, the living 
on board a man-of-war is like living in a maxket ; where 
you dress on the door-steps and sleep in the cellar. No 
privacy can you have ; hardly one moment^s seclusion. 
It is almost a physical impossibility, that you can ever 
be alone. You dine at a vast table cThdte; sleep in 
commons, and make your toilet where and when you 
can. There is no calling for a mutton-chop and a pint 
of claret by yourself; no selecting of chambers for the 
night; no hanging of pantaloons over the back of a 
chair; no ringing your bell of a rainy morning, to take 
your coJSfee in bed. It is something like life in a large 
manufactory. The bell strikes to dinner, and hungry 
or not, you must dine. 

Your clothes are stowed in a large canvas bag, gene- 
rally painted black, which you can get out of the 
" rack'' only once in the twenty-four hours ; and then, 
during the time of the utmost confusion ; among five 
hundred other bags, with five hundred other sailors 



THE WORLD IN A MilN-OF-WAil. 55 

diving into each^ in the midst of the twilight of the 
berth-deck. In some measure to obviate this incon- 
venience, many sailors divide their wardrobes between 
their hammocks and their bags ; stowing a few frocks 
and trowsers in the former ; so that they can shift at 
night, if they wish, when the hammocks are piped 
down. But they gain very little by this. 

You have no place whatever but your bag or ham- 
mock, in which to put any thing in a man-of-war. If 
you lay any thing down, and turn your back for a 
moment, ten to one it is gone. 

Now, in sketching the prehminary plan, and laying 
out the foundation of that memorable white jacket of 
mine, I had had an earnest eye to aU these inconve- 
niences, and resolved to avoid them. I proposed, that 
not only should my jacket keep me warm, but that it 
should also be so constructed as to contain a shii*t or 
two, a pair of trowsers, and divers knickknacks — sewing 
utensils, books, biscuits, and the Uke. With this object, 
I had accordingly provided it with a great variety of 
podkets, pantries, clothes-presses, and cupboards. 

The principal apartments, two in number, were placed 
in the skirts, with a wide, hospitable entrance from the 
nside ; two more, of smaller capacity, were planted in 
each breast, with folding-doors communicating, so that 
in case of emergency, to accommodate any bulky arti- 
cles, the two pockets in each breast could be thrown 
into one. There were, also, several unseen recesses 



56 WHITE-JACKET; OK, 

behind the arras ; insomuch^ that my jacket^ like an 
old castle^ was full of winding stairs^ and mysterious 
closets, crypts, and, cabinets; and like a confidential 
writing-desk, abounded in snug little out-of-the-way 
lairs and hiding-places, for the storage of yaluables. 

Superadded to these, were four capacious pockets on 
the outside ; one pair to slip books into when suddenly 
started from my studies to the main-royal-yard; and 
the other pair, for permanent mittens, to thrust my 
hands into of a cold night-watch. This last contrivance 
was regarded as needless by one of my top-mates, who 
showed me a j>attem for sea-mittens, which he said was 
much better than mine. 

It must be known, that sailors, eren in the bleakest 
weather, only cover hands when unemployed; they 
never wear mittens aloft; since aloft, they literally 
carry their lives in their hands, and want nothing be- 
tween their grasp of the hemp and the hemp itself. — 
Therefore, it is desirable, that whatever things they 
cover their hands with, should be capable of being 
slipped on and off in a moment. Nay, it is desirable 
that they should be of such a nature, that in a dark 
night, when you are in a great hurry — say, going to the 
hehn — ^they may be jumped into, indiscriminately ; and 
not be like a pair of right-and-left kids; neither of which 
will admit any hand, but the particular one meant for it. 

My top-mate's contrivance was this — ^he ought to 
have got out a patent for it — each of his mittens was 



THE WORLD IN A MAN^F-WAB. 57 

proTided with two thumbs^ one on each side ; the con- 
venience of which needs no comment. But though for 
dumsj seamen^ whose fingers are all thumbs^ this de- 
scription of mitten might do very well^ White- Jacket 
did not so much taxLcy it. For when your hand was 
once in the bag of the mitten^ the empty thumb-hole 
sometimes dangled at your palm^ confounding your 
ideas of where your real thumb might be ; or else^ 
being carefully grasped in the hand^ was continually 
suggesting the insane notion^ that you were all the 
while having hold of some one else's thumb. 

No ; I told my good top-mate to go away with his 
four thumbs^ I would have nothing to do with them ; 
two thumbs were enough for any man. 

For some time after completing my jacket, and get- 
ting the furniture and household stores in it^ I thought 
that nothing could exceed it for convenience. Seldom 
now did I have occasion to go to my bag^ and be jostled 
by the crowd who were making their wardrobe in a 
heap. If I wanted anything in the way of clothings 
threadj needles^ or literature^ the chances were that my 
invaluable jacket contained it. Yes : I fairly hugged 
myself; and revelled in my jacket; till alas ! a long rain 
put me out of conceit of it. I^ and all my pantries and 
their contents, were soaked through and through^ and my 
pocket-edition of Shakspeare was reduced to an omelet. 

However^ availing myself of a fine sunny day that 
f[dlowed; I emptied myself out in the main-top^ and 

1)3 



58 WHITE-JACKET j OR, 

spread all my goods and chattels to dry. But spite of the 
bright sun, that day proved a black one. The scoundrels 
on deck detected me in the act of discharging my 
saturated cargo j they now knew that the white jacket 
was used for a store-house. The consequence was, that 
my goods being well dried and again stored away in my 
pockets ; the very next night, when it was my quarter- 
watch on deck, and not in the top (where they were all 
honest men), I noticed a parcel of fellows skulking 
about after me wherever I went. To a man, they were 
pickpockets, and bent upon pillaging me. In vain I 
kept clapping my pockets hke nervous old gentlemen in 
a crowd; that same night I found myself minus several 
valuable articles. So, in the end, I masoned up my 
lockers and pantries ; and save the two used for mittens, 
the white jacket ever after was pocketless. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 59 



CHAPTER X. 



FROM POCKETS TO PICKPOCKETS. 



As the latter part of the preceding chapter may seem 
strange to those landsmen^ who have been habituated 
to indulge in high-raised, romantic notions of the man- 
of-war^s man^s character, it may not be amiss to set 
down here certain facts on this head, which may serve 
to place the thing in its true light. 

From the wild life they lead, and various other 
causes (needless to mention), sailors, as a class, enter- 
tain the most liberal notions concerning morality and 
the Decalogue ; or, rather, they take their own views of 
such matters, caring Httle for the theological or ethical 
definitions of others concerning what may be criminal, 
or wrong. 

Their ideas are much swayed by circumstances. They 
will covertly abstract a thing from one whom they dis- 
like ; and insist upon it, that, in such a case, stealing is 
no robbing. Or, where the theft involves something 
funny, as in the case of the white jacket, they only 
steal for the sake of the joke ; but this much is to be 
observed nevertheless, i.e., that they never spoil the 
joke by returning the stolen article. 



60 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

It is a good joke^ for instance, and one often perpe- 
trated on board ship, to stand talking to a man in a 
dark night-watch, and all the while be cutting the 
buttons from his coat. But once off, those buttons 
never grow on again. There is no spontaneous vegeta- 
tion in buttons. 

Perhaps it is a thing unavoidable, but the truth is, 
that among the crew of a man-of-war, scores of despe- 
radoes are too often found, who stop not at the largest 
enormities. A species of highway robbery is not un- 
known to them. A gang will be informed, that such a 
fellow has three or four gold pieces in the monkey-bag, 
so called, or purse, which many tars wear round their 
necks, tucked out of sight. Upon this, they delibe- 
rately lay their plans, and in due time proceed to 
carry them into execution. The man they have marked 
is perhaps strolling along the benighted berth-deck to 
his mess-chest ; when, of a sudden, the foot-pads dash 
out from their hiding place, throw him down, and while 
two or three gag him and hold him fast, another cuts 
the bag from his neck, and makes away with it, followed 
by his comrades. This was more than once done in 
the Neversink. 

At other times, hearing that a sailor has something 
valuable secreted in his hammock, they will rip it open 
from underneath while he sleeps, and reduce the conjec- 
ture to a certainty. 

To enumerate all the minor pilferings on board a 



THE WOULD IN A MAN-Of-WAE. 61 

man-of-war would be endless. With some highly com- 
mendable exceptions^ they rob from one another^ and 
rob back again^ tiU^ in the matter of small things^ a 
community of goods seems almost established ; and at 
last, as a whole, they become relatively honest, by 
nearly every man becoming the reverse. It is in vain 
that the officers, by threats of condign punishment, 
endeavour to instil more virtuous principles into their 
crew ; so thick is the mob, that not one thief in a thou- 
sand is detected. 



62 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 



CHAPTER XI. 

THB PURSUIT 07 POEIRT UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 

Tfl£ feeling of insecurity concerning one^s posses- 
sions in the Neversink^ which the things just narrated 
begat in the minds of honest men^ was curiously exem- 
plified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford^ a gen- 
tlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very 
early made the acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, 
how unerringly a man pitches upon a spirit, any way 
akin to his own, even in the most miscellaneous mob. 

Lemsford was a poet ; so thoroughly inspired with 
the divine afflatus^ that not even all the tar and timiult 
of a man-of-war could drive it out of him. 

As may readily be imagined^ the business of writing 
verse is a very diflferent thing on the gun-deck of a 
Mgate, from what the gentle and sequestered Words- 
worth found it at placid Bydal Mount, in Westmoreland. 
In a frigate, you cannot sit down and meander off your 
sonnets, when the full heart prompts ; but only, when 
more important duties permit : such as bracing round 
the yards, or reefing top-sails fore and aft. Nevertheless, 
every fragment of time at his command was religiously 
devoted by Lemsford to the Nine. At the most unsea- 
sonable hours, you would behold him, seated apart, in 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 63 

some comer among the guns — a shot-box before him, 
pen in hand, and eyes "i» a fine frenzy roUing.^^ 

" What's that 'ere bom natural about V'—'' He's got 
a fit, hain't he ?" were exclamations often made by the 
less learned of his shipmates. Some deemed him a 
conjuror; others a lunatic; and the knowing ones said, 
that he must be a crazy Methodist. But well knowing 
by experience the truth of the saying, that poetry is its 
own exceeding great reward^ Lemsford wrote on ; dash- 
ing off whole epics, sonnets, ballads, and acrostics, with 
a facility which, under the circumstances, amazed me. 
Often he read over his effusions to me ; and well worth 
the hearing they were. He had wit, imagination, feel- 
ing, and humour m. abundance; and out of the very 
ridicule with which some persons regarded him, he 
made rare metrical sport, which we two together 
enjoyed by ourselves, or shared with certain select 
Mends. 

Still, the taunts and jeers so often levelled at my fine 
friend the poet, would now and then rouse him into 
rage ; and at such times, the haughty scorn he would 
hurl on his foes, was proof positive of his possession of 
that one attribute, irritability, almost universally as- 
cribed to the votaries of Parnassus and the Nine. 

My noble Captain, Jack Chase, rather patronised 
Lemsford, and he would stoutly take his part against 
scores of adversaries. Frequently inviting him up aloft 
into his top, he would beg him to recite some of his 



64 WHITE- JACKET; OK, 

verses ; to which he would pay the most heedful atten- 
tion, like Mecsenas listening to Virgil, with a book of 
the iEneid in his hand. Taking the liberty of a well- 
wisher, he would sometimes gently criticise the piece, 
suggesting a few immaterial alterations. And upon 
my word, noble Jack, with his native-bom good sense, 
taste, aud humanity, was not ill qualified to play the 
true part of a Quarterly Review; — ^which is, to give 
quarter at last, however severe the critique. 

Now Lemsford's great care, anxiety, and endless 
source of tribulation was the preservation of his manu- 
scripts. He had a little box, about the size of a smaU 
dressing-case, and secured with a lock, in which he kept 
his papers and stationary. This box, of course, he could 
not keep in his bag or hammock, for, in either case, he 
would only be able to get at it once in the twenty-four 
hours. It was necessary to have it accessible at all 
times. So when not using it, he was obliged to hide it 
out of sight, where he could. And of all places in the 
world, a ship of war, above her hold, least abounds in 
secret nooks. Almost every inch is occupied ; almost 
every inch is in plain sight ; and almost every inch is 
continually being visited and explored. Added to all 
this, was the deadly hostility of the whole tribe of ship- 
underlings — master-at-arms, ship^s-corporals, and boat- 
swain's mates — ^both to the poet and his casket. They 
hated his box, as if it had been Pandora's, crammed to 
the very lid with hurricanes and gales. They hunted 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 65 

out his hiding-places like pointers^ and gave him np 
peace night or day. 

Still, the long twenty-four pounders on the main- 
deck offered some promise of a hiding place to the box; 
and, accordingly, it was often tucked away behind the 
carriages, among the side tackles; its black colour 
blending with the ebon hue of the guns. 

But Quoin, one of the quarter-gunners, had eyes Uke 
a ferret. Quoin was a little old man-of-war's man, 
hardly five feet high, with a complexion like a gun-shot 
wound after it is healed. He was indefatigable in at- 
tending to his duties ; which consisted in taking care of 
one division of the guns, embracing ten of the aforesaid 
twenty-four-pounders. Banged up against the ship^s side 
at regular intervals, they resembled not a little a stud of 
sable chargers in their stalls. Among this iron stud 
little Quoin was continually running in and out, curry- 
ing them down, now and th^n, with an old rag, or 
keeping the flies off with a brush. To Quoin, the honour 
and dignity of the United States of America seemed 
indissolubly linked with the keeping his guns unspotted 
and glossy. He himself was black as a chimney-sweep 
with continually tending them, and rubbing them down 
with black paint. He would sometimes get outside of 
the port-holes and peer into the muzzles, as a monkey 
into a bottle. Or, like a dentist, he seemed intent upon 
examining their teeth. Quite as often, he would be 
bnishing out their touch-holes with a Kttle wisp of 



66 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

oakum^ like a Chinese barber in Canton^ cleaning 
a patient^s ear. 

Such was his solicitude^ that it was a thousand pities 
he was not able to dwarf himself still more^ so as to 
creep in at the touch-hole, and examining the whole 
interior of the tube, emerge at last from the muzzle. 
Quoin swore by his guns, and slept by their side. Woe 
betide the man whom he found leaning against them, 
or in any way soiling them. He seemed seized 
with the crazy fancy, that his darling twenty-four- 
pounders were fragile, and might break, like glass 
retorts. 

Now, from this Quoin's vigilance, how could my poor 
friend the poet hope to escape with his box? Twenty 
times a week it was pounced upon, with a ^^ here's that 
d — d pill-box again!'' and a loud threat, to pitch it 
overboard the next time, without a moment's warning, 
or benefit of clergy. Like many poets, Lemsford was 
nervous, and upon these occasions he trembled like a 
leaf. Once, with an inconsolable countenance he came 
to me, saying that his casket was nowhere to be found ; 
he had sought for it in his hiding-place, and it was not 
there. 

I asked him where he had hidden it ? 

" Among the guns," he replied. 

'^ Then depend upon it, Lemsford, that Quoin has 
been the death of it." 

Straight to Quoin went the poet. But Quoin knew 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. %7 

nothing about it. For ten mortal days the poet was 
not to be comforted ; dividing his leisure time between 
cursing Quoin and lamenting his loss. The world is 
undone^ he must have thought ; no such calamity has 
befallen it since the Deluge ; — my verses are perished. 

But though Quoin^ as it afterwards turned out^ had 
indeed found the box^ it so happened that he had not 
destiroyed it; which no doubt led Lemsford to infer 
that a superintending Providence had interposed to 
preserve to posterity his invaluable casket. It was 
foimd at last lying exposed near the galley* 

Lemsford was not the only literary man on board the 
Neversink. There were three or four persons who kept 
journals of the cruise. One of these journalists embel- 
lished his work — ^which was written in a large blank 
account book — ^with various coloured illustrations of the 
harbours and bays at which the frigate had touched ; 
and also^ with small crayon sketches of comical inci- 
dents on board the frigate itself. He would frequently 
read passages of his book to an admiring circle of the 
more refined sailors between the guns. They pro- 
nounced the whole performance a miracle of art. As 
the author declared to them that it was all to be printed 
and pubUshed so soon as the vessel reached home^ they 
vied with each other in procuring interesting items, to 
be incorporated into additional chapters. But it hav- 
ing been rumoured abroad that this journal was to be 
ominously entitled " The Cruise of the Neversinky or 



68 WHITE-JACKET j OE, 

a Paixhan Shot into Naval Abuses ;'' and it having also 
reached the ears of the Ward-room that the work con- 
tained reflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity 
of the officers, the volume was seized by the master-at- 
arms, armed with a warrant from the Captain. A few 
days after, a large nail was driven straight through the 
two covers, and clinched on the other side, and, thus 
everlastingly sealed, the book was committed to the 
deep. The ground taken by the authorities on this 
occasion was, perhaps, that the book was obnoxious to 
a certain clause in the Articles of War, forbidding any 
person in the navy to bring any other person in the 
navy into contempt, which the suppressed volume 
undoubtedly did. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAH. 69 



CHAPTER XII. 

TBI GOOD OB BAD TXMPBB OT XAir-OT-WAB*S KSS, JS A 6BEAT DEOBEE, 
ATTBIBUTABLB TO TBEIB PABnOULAB 8TATI0BS AND DUTIES ABOABD SBIP. 

Quoin, the quarter-gunner, was the representative of a 
class on board the Neversink, altogether too remarkable 
to be left astern, without further notice, in the rapid 
wake of these chapters. 

As has been seen. Quoin was full of unaccountable 
whimsies; he was, withal, a very cross, bitter, ill- 
natured, inflammable little old man. So, too, were all 
the members of the gunner's gang, including the two 
gunner's mates, and all the quarter-gunners. Every 
one of them had the same dark brown complexion ; all 
their faces looked like smoked hams^ They were con- 
tinually grumbling and growling about the batteries ; 
running in and out among the guns ; driving the sailors 
away from them ; and cursing and swearing as if aU 
their consciences had been powder^^inged and made 
callous by their calling. Indeed they were a most 
unpleasant set of men, especially Priming, the nasal- 
voiced gunner's mate, with the hare-lip ; and Cylinder, 
his stuttering coadjutor, with the clubbed foot. But 
you willtdways observe, that^the gunner's gang of every 
man-of-war are invariably ill-tempered, ugly featured. 



70 WHITE- JACKET j OR, 

and quarrelsome. Once when I visited an English 
line-of-battle ship, the gunner^s gang were at work fore 
and aft, polishing up the batteries, which, according to 
the admiral^s fancy, had been painted white as snow. 
Fidgeting round the great thirty-two pounders, and 
making stinging remarks at the sailors and each other, 
they reminded one of a swarm of black wasps, buzzing 
about rows of white head-stones in a churchyard. 

Now, there can be little doubt that their being so 
much among the guns is the very thing that makes 
a gunner's gang so cross and quarrelsome. Indeed, 
this was once proved to the satisfaction of our whole 
company of main-top-men. A fine top-mate of ours, 
a most merry and companionable fellow, chanced to be 
promoted to a quarter-gunner^s berth. A few days 
afterwards, some of us main-top-men, his old comrades, 
went to pay him a visit, while he was going his regular 
rounds through the division of guns allotted to his care. 
But instead of greeting us with his usual heartiness, 
and cracking his pleasant jokes, to our amazement he 
did little else but scowl ; and at last, when we rallied 
him upon his ill-temper, he seized a long black rammer 
from overhead, and drove us on deck, threatening to 
report us if we ever dared to be familiar with him again. 
My top-mates thought that this remarkable meta- 
morphose was the effect produced upon a weak, vain 
character, suddenly elevated from the level of a mere 
seaman to the dignified position of a petty officer. But 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 71 

though^ in similar cases^ I had seen such effects pro- 
duced upon some of the crew, yet, in the present 
instance, I knew better than that; — it was solely 
brought about by his consorting with those villanous, 
irritable, ill-tempered cannon ; more especiaUy from his 
being subject to the orders of those deformed blunder- 
busses. Priming and Cylinder. 

The truth seems to be, indeed, that aU people should 
be very careful in selecting their callings and vocations ; 
very careful in seeing to it, that they surround them- 
selves by good-humoured, pleasant-looking objects, and 
agreeable, temper-soothing sounds. Many an angelic 
disposition has had its even edge turned, and hacked 
like a saw; and many a sweet draught of piety has 
soured on the heart, from people's choosing ill-natured 
employments, and omitting to gather round them good- 
natured landscapes. Gardeners are almost always 
pleasant, affable people to converse with ; but beware 
of quarter-gunners, keepers of arsenals, and lonely 
lighthouse men. And though you will generally 
observe that people living in arsenals and lighthouses 
endeavour to cultivate a few flowers in pots, and perhaps 
a few cabbages in patches, by way of keeping up, if 
possible, some gaiety of spirits ; yet, it will not do ; 
their going among great guns and muskets, everlastingly 
mildews the blossoms of the one, and how can even 
cabbages thrive in a soil whereunto the mouldering 
keels of shipwrecked vessels have imparted the loam ? 



72 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

It would be advisable for any man^ who from an 
unlucky choice of a profession, which it is too late to 
change for another^ should find his temper souring, 
to endeavour to counteract that misfortune, by filling 
his private chamber with amiable, pleasurable sights 
and sounds. In summer time an MoHbh harp can be 
placed in your window at a very trifling expense; 
a conch-shell might stand on your mantel^ to be taken 
up and held to the ear, that you may be soothed by its 
continual lulling sound, when you feel the blue fit 
steaUng over you. For sights, a gay-painted punch- 
bowl, or Dutch tankard — ^never mind about filling it — 
might be recommended. It should be placed on a 
bracket in the pier. Nor is an old-fashioned silver 
ladle, nor a chased dinner-castor, nor a fine portly 
demijohn, nor any thing, indeed, that savours of eating 
and drinking, bad to drive off the spleen. Sut perhaps 
the best of aU is a shelf of merrily-bound books, con- 
taining comedies, farces, songs, and humorous novels. 
You need never open them; only have the titles in 
plain sight. For this purpose. Peregrine Pickle is a 
good book ; so is Gil Slas ; so is Gk)ldsmith. 

But of all chamber furniture in the world, best calcu- 
lated to cure a bad temper and breed a pleasant one, is 
the sight of a lovely wife. If you have children, how- 
ever, that are teething, the nursery should be a good 
way upstairs ; at sea, it ought to be in the mizzen-top. 
Indeed, teething children play the very deuce with 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 73 

a husband's temper. I have known three promising young 
husbands completely spoil on their wives' hands^ by 
reason of teething children, whose worrisomeness hap- 
pened to be aggravated at the time by the summer com- 
plaint. With a breaking heart, and my handkerchief to 
my eyes, I followed those three hapless young husbands, 
one after the other, to their premature graves. 

Gossiping scenes breed gossips. Who so chatty as 
hotel-clerks, market-women, auctioneers, bar-keepers, 
apothecaries, newspaper reporters, monthly nurses, and 
aU those who Uve in bustling crowds, or are present at 
scenes of chatty interest ? 

Solitude breeds taciturnity; that everybody knows; 
who so taciturn as authors, taken as a race ? 

A forced, interior quietude, in the midst of great out- 
ward commotion, breeds moody people. Who so moody 
as rail-road breakmen, steam-boat engineers, helmsmen, 
and tenders of power-looms in cotton factories ? For all 
these must hold their peace while employed, and let the 
machinery do the chatting ; they cannot even edge in a 
single syllable. 

Now, this theory about the wondrous influence of 
habitual sights and sounds upon the human temper, 
was suggested by my experiences on board our frigate. 
And although I regard the example furnished by our 
quarter-gunners — especially him who had once been our 
top-mate— -as by far the strongest argument in favour 
of the general theory; yet the entire ship abounded 

VOL. I. £ 



74 WHITE- JACKETT ; OB, 

with illustrations of its truth. Who were more liberal- 
hearted, lofty-minded, gayer, more jocund, elastic, ad- 
venturous, given to fun and froUc, than the top-men of 
the fore, main, and mizzen masts ? The reason of their 
liberal-heartedness was,' that they were daily called 
upon to expatiate themselves all over the rigging ; the 
reason of their lofly-mindedness was, that they were 
high lifted above the petty tumults, carping cares, and 
paltrinesses of the decks below. 

And I feel persuaded in my inmost soul, that it is to 
the fact of my having been a main-top-man, and espe- 
cially my particular post being on the loftiest yard of 
the firigate, the main-royal-yard, that I am now enabled 
to give such a free, broad, off-hand, bird^s-eye, and, 
more than aU, impartial account of our man-of-war 
world; withholding nothing; inventing nothing; nor 
flattering, nor scandalizing any ; but meting out to all — 
commodore and messenger-boy alike — their precise 
descriptions and deserts. 

The reason of the mirthfiilness of these top-men was, 
that they always looked out upon the blue, boundless, 
dimpled, laughing, simny sea. Nor do I hold that it 
militates against this theory, that of a stormy day, when 
the face of the ocean was black and overcast, some 
of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On 
the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. 
For even on shore there are many people, naturally gay 
and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind 



THE WORU) IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 75 

begins to bluster round the comers^ and roar along the 
chimney-stacks^ straight become cross^ petulant^ and 
irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale ? Yet 
thunder wiU sour the best nut-brown ever brewed. 

The Holders of our frigate^ the Troglodytes, who lived 
down in the tarry cellars and caves below the berth- 
deck, were, nearly all of them, men of gloomy dispo-* 
sitions, taking sour views of things ; one of them was a 
blue-light Calvinist. Whereas the old-sheet-anchor- 
men, who spent their time in the bracing sea-air and 
broad-cast sunshine of the forecastle, were free, gene- 
rous-hearted, charitable, and full of good-will to all 
hands ; though some of them, to tell the truth, proved 
sad exceptions ; but exceptions only prove the rule. 

The " steady-cooks '' on the berth-deck, the " steady- 
sweepers," and " steady-spit-box-musterers," in aU di- 
visions of the frigate, fore and aft, were a narrow-minded 
set ; with contracted souls ; imputable, no doubt, to their 
grovelling duties. More especially was this evinced in 
the case of those odious ditchers and night scavengers, 
the ignoble " Waisters." 

The members of the band, some ten or twelve in 
number, who had nothing to do but keep their instru- 
ments polished, and play a lively air now and then, to 
stir the stagnant current in our poor old Commodore's 
torpid veins, were the most gleefrd set of fellows you 
ever saw. They were Portuguese, who had been shipped 
at the Cape de Yerd Islands, on the passage out. They 

e2 



76 WHITE- JACKET; OR, 

messed by themselves ; forming a dinner-party, not to 
be exceeded in mirthfulness by a club of young bride- 
grooms, three months after marriage, completely satis- 
fied with their bargains, after testing them. 

Sut what made them, now, so full of fun? What 
indeed but their merry, martial, mellow calling. Who 
could be a churl, and play a flageolet ? who mean and 
spiritless, braying forth the souls of thousand heroes 
from his brazen trump? But still more efficacious, 
perhaps, in ministering to the Ught spirits of the band, 
was the consoling thought, that should the ship ever go 
into action, they would be exempted from the perils of 
battle. In ships of war, the members of the " music,'* 
as the band is called, are generally non-combatants; 
and mostly ship, with the express understanding, that 
as soon as the vessel comes within long gun-shot of an 
enemy, they shall have the privilege of burrowing down 
in the cable-tiers, or sea coal-hole. Which shows that 
they are inglorious, but uncommonly sensible fellows. 

Look at the barons of the gun-room — Lieutenants, 
Purser, Marine officers. Sailing-master — ^all of them 
gentlemen with stiff upper lips, and aristocratic cut 
noses. Why was this ? Will any one deny, that from 
their living so long in high military life, served by a 
crowd of menial stewards and cot-boys, and always 
accustomed to command right and left ; will any one 
deny, I say, that by reason of this, their very noses had 
become tiiin, peaked, aquiline, and aristocratically 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAB. ^i 

cartilaginous? Even old Cuticle^ the Surgeon^ had a 
Roman nose. 

But I never conld account how it came to be^ that 
our grey-headed First Lieutenant was a little lop-sided ; 
that is5 one of his shoulders disproportionately drooped. 
And when I observed, that nearly all the First Liefutenants 
I saw in other men-of-war, besides many Second and 
Third Lieutenants, were similarly lop-sided ; I knew that 
there must be some general law which induced the 
phenomenon ; and I put myself to studying it out, as 
an interesting problem. At last, I came to the con- 
clusion — to which I still adhere— that their so long 
wearing only one epaulet (for to only one does their 
rank entitle them) was the infallible clew to this mys- 
tery. And when any one reflects upon so well-known 
a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from 
age, without attaining a Captaincy and wearing two 
epaulets, which would strike the balance between their 
shoulders, the above reason assigned will not appear 
unwarrantable. 



78 WHrrE-JACBBT ; OB, 



CHAPTER XIII. 



A MAN-OF-WAB HBRMIT IN A MOB. 



The allusion to the poet Lemsford, in a previous 
chapter^ leads me to speak of our mutual friends^ Nord 
and Williams^ who with Lemsford himself^ Jack Chase^ 
and my comrades of the main-top^ comprised almost 
the only persons with whom I unreservedly consorted 
while on board the frigate ; for I had not been long on 
board ere I found that it would not do to be intimate 
with everybody. An indiscriminate intimacy with all 
hands leads to sundry annoyances and scrapes, too 
often ending with a dozen at the gang-way. Though 
I was above a year in the frigate^ there were scores 
of men who to the last remained perfect strangers to 
me^ whose very names I did not know^ and whom I 
would hardly be able to recognise now should I happen 
to meet them in the streets. 

In the dog-watches at sea^ during the early part of 
the evenings the main-deck is generally filled with 
crowds of pedestrians^ promenading up and down 
past the guns^ like people taking the air in Broadway. 
At such times, it is curious to see the men nodding 
to each other^s recognitions (they might not have seen 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 79 

each other for a week) ; exchanging a pleasant word 
with a firiendj making a harried appointment to meet 
him somewhere aloft on the morrow, or passing group 
after group without deigning the slightest salutation. 
Indeed, I was not at all singular in having but compa- 
ratively few acquaintances on board, though certainly 
carrying my fastidiousness to an unusual extent. 

My friend Nord was a somewhat remarkable cha- 
racter; and if mystery includes romance, he certainly 
was a very romantic one. Sefore seeking an introduc- 
tion to him through Lemsford, I had often marked his 
tall, spare, upright figure stalking like Don Quixote 
among the pigmies of the Afterguard to which he be- 
longed. At first I found him exceedingly reserved and 
taciturn ; his saturnine brow wore a scowl ; he was 
almost repelling in his demeanour. In a word, he 
seemed desirous of hinting, that his list of man-of-war 
friends was already made up, complete, and full ; and 
there was no room for more. Sut observing that the 
only man he ever consorted with was Lemsford, I had 
too much magnanimity, by going off in a pique at his 
coldness, to let him lose for ever the chance of making 
so capital an acquaintance as myself. Besides, I saw it 
in his eye, that the man had been a reader of good 
books j I would have staked my life on it, that he seized 
the right meaning of Montaigne. I saw that he was 
an earnest thinker ; I more than suspected that he had 
been bolted in the mill of adversity. For all these things 



80 white-jacket; oe, 

my heart yearned toward him ; I determined to know 
him. 

At last I succeeded; it was daring a profoundly quiet 
;midnight watch^ when I perceived him walking alone in 
the waist^ while most of the men were dozing on the 
carronade-slides. 

That night we scoured all the prairies of reading ; 
dived into the bosoms of authors, and tore out their 
hearts ; and that night White- Jacket learned more than 
he has ever done in any single night since. 

The man was a marvel. He amazed me, as much as 
Coleridge did the troopers among whom he enlisted. 
What could have induced such a man to enter a man-of- 
war, all my sapience cannot fathom. And how he 
managed to preserve his dignity, as he did, among such 
a rabble rout was equally a mystery. For he was no 
sailor; as ignorant of a ship, indeed, as a man from the 
sources of the Niger. Yet the officers respected him ; 
and the men were afraid of him. This much was 
observable, however, that he faithfully discharged what- 
ever special duties devolved upon him; and was so for- 
tunate as never to render himself liable to a reprimand. 
Doubtless he took the same view of the thing that 
another of the crew did ; and had early resolved, so to 
conduct himself as never to run the risk of the scourge. 
And this it must have been — added to whatever incom- 
municable grief which might have been his — ^that made 
this Nord such a wandering recluse, even among our 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 81 

man-of-war mob. Nor could he Have long swimg his 
hammock on boards ere he must have found that^ to 
insure Ids exemption from that thing which alone af- 
frighted him^ he must be content for the most part to 
turn a man-hater^ and socially expatriate himself from 
many things which might haye rendered his situation 
more tolerable. Still more^ several events that took 
place must have horrified him^ at times^ with the thought 
that^ however he might isolate and entomb himself^ yet 
for all this^ the improbability of his being overtaken by 
what he most dreaded never advanced to the infallibility 
of the impossible. 

In my intercourse with Nord^ he never made allusion 
to his past career — ^a subject upon which most high- 
bred castaways in a man-of-war are very diffuse ; relating 
their adventures at the gaming-table; the recklessness 
with which they have run through the amplest fortunes 
in a single season; their almsgivings^ and gratuities to 
porters and poor relations; and above all^ their youth- 
ful indiscretions^ and the broken-hearted ladies they 
have left behind. No such tales had Nord to teH 
Concerning the past^ he was barred and locked up like 
the specie vaults of the Bank of England. For any 
thing that dropped from him, none of us could be sure 
that he had ever existed till now. Altogether he was 
a remarkable man. 

My other friend, Williams, was a thorough-going 
Yankee from Maine, who had been both a pedler and 

£3 



82 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

a pedago^e in his day. He had all maimer of stories 
to tell about nice little comitry frolics, and would run 
over an endless list of his sweethearts. He was honest, 
acute, mtty, fuU of mirth and good.humoui>-a laugh- 
ing philosopher. He was invaluable as a pill against 
the spleen ; and, with the view of extending the advan- 
tages of his society to the saturnine Nord, I introduced 
them to each other; but Nord cut him dead the very 
isame evening, when we sallied out from between the 
guns for a walk on the main-deck. 



*^^ 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 88 



CHAPTER XIV. 



A DRAUGHT IN A MAN-OF-WAS. 



We were not many days out of port, when a rumour 
was set afloat that dreadfully alarmed many tars. It 
was this : that, owing to some unprecedented oversight 
in the Purser, or some equally unprecedented remissness 
in the Naval-store-keeper at Callao, the frigate's supply 
of that delectable beverage, called ^' grog,'' was well- 
nigh expended. 

In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of 
spirits per day to every seaman. In two portions, it is 
served out just previous to breakfast and dinner. At 
the roll of the drum, the sailors assemble round a large 
tub, or cask, filled with the liquid; and, as their names 
are called off by a midshipman, they step up and regale 
themselves firom a little tin measure called a tot. No 
high-liver helping himself to Tokay off a well-polished 
sideboard, smacks his lips with more mighty satisfaction 
than the sailor does over this tot To many of them, 
indeed, the thought of their daily tots forms a perpetual 
perspective of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding 
in the distance. It is their great " prospect in life." 
Take away their grog, and life possesses no further 
charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted., that the 



84 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

controlling inducement which keeps many men in the 
Navy, is the unbounded confidence they have in the 
abiUtyof the United States government to supply them, 
regularly and unfailingly, with their daily allowance of 
this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals, 
shipping as landsmen, who have confessed to me, that 
having contracted a love for ardent spirits, which they 
could not renounce, and having by their foolish courses 
been brought into the most abject poverty— insomuch 
that they could no longer gratify their thirst ashore— 
they incontinently entered the Navy ; regarding it as 
the asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong 
their lives by regular hours and exercise, and twice 
every day quench their thirst by moderate and unde- 
viating doses. 

When I once remonstrated with an old toper of 
a top-man about his daily dram-drinking; when I 
told him it was ruining him, and advised him to stop 
his grog and receive the money for it, in addition to 
his wages, as provided by law, he turned about on me 
with an irresistibly waggish look, and said, ^^ Give up 
Biy grog ? And why ? Because it is ruining me ? No, 
no ; I am a good Christian, White- Jacket, and love my 
enemy too much to drop his acquaintance.'' 

It may be readily imagined, therefore, what conster- 
nation and dismay pervaded the gun-deck at the first 
announcement of the tidings that the grog was expended. 

^^ The girog gone I'' roared an old Sheet-anchor-man. 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 85 

" Oh ! Lord 1 what a pain in my stomach \" cried 
a Main-top-man. 

"It^s worse than the cholera!'' cried a man of the 
Afterguard. 

*^ I'd sooner the water-casks would give out !" said 
a Captisdn of the Hold. 

*^ Are we ganders and geese^ that we can live with- 
out grog?" asked a Corporal of Marines. 

" Ay, we must now drink with the ducks \" cried a 
Quarter-master. 

" Not a tot left !" groaned a Waister. 

" Not a toothful !" sighed a Holder, from the bottom 
of his boots. 

Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum 
was no longer heard rolling the men to the tub, and 
deep gloom and dejection fell Hke a cloud. The ship 
was like a great dty, when some terrible calamity has 
overtaken it. The men stood apart, in groups, discuss- 
ing their woes, and mutually condoling. No longer, of 
stiill moonlight nights, was the song heard from the 
giddy tops ; and few and far between were the stories 
that were told. 

It was during this interval, so dismal to many, that, 
to the amazement of all hands, ten men were reported 
by the master-at-arms to be intoxicated. They were 
brought up to the mast, and at their appearance the 
doubts of the most sceptical were dissipated; but whence 
they had obtained their liquor no one could tell. It 



86 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

was observed however^ at the time^ that the tarry 
knaves all smelled of lavender, like so many dandies. 

After their examination they were ordered into the 
''brig/' a gaol-house between two guns on the main- 
deck, where prisoners are kept. Here they laid for 
some time, stretched out stark and stiff, with their arms 
folded over their breasts, like so many effigies of the 
Black Prince on his monument in Canterbury CathedraL 

Their first slumbers over, the marine sentiy who 
stood guard over them had as much as he could do 
to keep off the crowd, who were all eagerness to find 
out how, in such a time of want, the prisoners had 
managed to drink themselves into obUvion. In due 
time they were liberated, and the secret simultaneously 
leaked out. 

It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, 
who had suffered severely from the common deprivation, 
had all at once been struck by a brilliant idea. It had 
come to his knowledge that the purser's steward was 
supplied vrith a large quantity of Eau-de-Coloffne, clan- 
destinely brought out in the ship, for the purpose of 
selling it, on his own account, to the people of the 
coast; but the supply proving laager than the demand, 
and having no customers on board the frigate but 
Lieutenant Selvagee, he was now carrying home more 
than a third of his original stock. To make a short 
story of it, this functionary being called upon in secret, 
was readily prevailed upon to part with a dozen bottles. 



THE WOBXD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 87 

with whose contents the intoxicated party had regaled 
hemselyes. 

The news spread far and wide among the men^ being 
only kept secret from the officers and underlings, and 
that night the long, crane-necked Cologne bottles 
jingled in out of-the-way comers and by-places, and, 
being emptied, were sent flying out of the ports. With 
brown sugar, taken firom the mess-chests, and hot water 
begged firom the gaUey-cooks, the men made aU manner 
of punches, toddies, and cocktails, letting fall therein 
a small drop of tar, like a bit of brown toast, by way of 
imparting a flavour. Of course the thing was managed 
with the utmost secresy; and as a whole dark night 
elapsed after their orgies, the revellers were, in a good 
measure, secure from detection; and those who in- 
dulged too freely had twelve long hours to get sober 
before daylight obtruded. 

Next day, fore and aft, the whole frigate smelled like 
a lady's toilet; the very tar-buckets were fragrant; and 
from the mouth of many a grim, grizzled old quarter- 
gunner came the most fragrant of breaths. The amazed 
Lieutenants went about snuffing up the gale ; and, for 
once, Selvagee had no frui^her need to flourish his 
perfrimed handkerchief. It was as if we were sailing 
by some odoriferous shore, in the vernal season of 
violets. Sabsean odours ! 

" For many a league, 
Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiled.'* 



88 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

But^ alas I all this perfiime could not be wasted for 
nothing; and the masters-at«arms and ship's corporals 
putting this and that together, very soon burrowed into 
the secret. The purser's steward was called to account, 
and no more lavender punches and Cologne toddies 
were drank on board the Neversink. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 89 



CHAPTER XV. 

A 8ALT-JXJKK OLUB IN A VAN-OF-WAB, WITH A HOUOB TO QUIT. 

It was about the period of the Cologne-water excite- 
ment that my self-conceit was not a little wounded^ 
and my sense of delicacy altogether shocked^ by a polite 
hint received from the cook of the mess to which I 
happened to belong. To understand the matter^ it is 
needful to enter into prehminaries. 

The common seamen in a large frigate are divided 
into some thirty or forty messes^ put down on the 
purser's books as Mess No. 1^ Mess No. 2, Mess No. 3, 
&c. The members of each mess club their rations of 
provisions^ and breakfast^ dine^ and sup together in 
allotted intervals between the guns on the main-deck. 
In undeviating rotation^ the members of each mess 
(excepting the petty-officers) take their turn in per- 
forming the functions of cook and steward. And for 
the time beings all the affairs of the dub are subject to 
their inspection and control. 

It is the cook's business^ also^ to have an eye to the 
general interests of his mess ; to see that^ when the 
aggregated allowances of beef^ breads &c. are served 
out by one of the master's mates^ the mess over which 
he presides receives its fuU share^ without stint or 



90 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

subtraction. Upon the berth-deck he has a chesty in 
which to keep his pots^ pans^ spoons^ and small stores 
of sugar^ molasses^ tea^ and flour. 

But though entitled a cook, strictly speaking, the 
head of the mess is no cook at all; for the cooking for 
the crew is all done by a high and mighty functionary, 
officially called the " ship's cook/' assisted by several 
deputies. In our frigate, this personage was a dignified 
coloured gentleman, whom the men dubbed ^^ Old Coffee;'* 
and his assistants, negroes also, went by the poetical 
appellations oV^Sunshine^ " Rose-water, ^^vixuSi" May -day. ^ 

Now, the ship^s cooking required very little science, 
though Old Coffee often assured us that he had gradu- 
ated at the New York Astor House, under the imme- 
diate eye of the celebrated Coleman and Stetson. All 
he had to do was, in the first place, to keep bright and 
clean the three huge coppers, or caldrons, in which 
many hundred pounds of beef were daily boiled. To 
this end. Rose-water, Sunshine, and May-day every 
morning sprang into their respective apartments, 
stripped to the waist, and well provided with bits of 
soap-stone and sand. By exercising these in a very 
vigorous manner, they threw themselves into a violent 
perspiration, and put a fine polish upon the interior of 
the coppers. 

Simshine was the bard of the trio; and while all 
three would be busily employed clattering their soap- 
stones against the metal, he would exhilarate them 



THE WOBXD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 91 

with some remarkable St. Domingo melodies; one of 
which was the following : — 

''Oh! I los' my shoe in an old canoe, 

Johnio t come Winum so ! 
Oh 1 I lo8* my boot in a pilot-boat, 

Johnio ! come Winum so ! 
Den rub-a^ub de copper, oh ! 
Oh ! copper rub-a-dab-a^h! " 

When I listened to these jolly AMcans^ thus making, 
gleeful their toil by their cheering songs^ I could not 
help murmuring against that immemorial rule of men- 
of-war, which forbids the sailors to sing out, as in 
merchant-ressek, when pulling ropes, or occupied at 
any other ship^s duty. Your only music, at such times, 
is the shrill pipe of the boatswain's mate, which is 
almost worse than no music at aU. And if the boat- 
swain's mate is not by, you must pull the ropes, like 
convicts, in profound silence ; or else endeavour to 

impart unity to the exertions of all hands, by singing 

« 

out mechanically, one, two, three, and then pulling 
all tc^ether. 

Now, when Sunshine, Rose-water, and May-day have 
so polished the ship's coppers, that a white kid glove 
might be drawn along the inside and show no stain, 
they leap out of their holes, and the water is poured in 
for the coffee. And the coffee being boiled, and de- 
canted off in buckets' full, the cooks of the messes 
march up with their salt beef for dinner, strung upon 
strings and tallied with labels ; all of which are plunged 



92 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

together into the self-same coppers^ and there boiled. 
When^ upon the beef being fished out with a huge 
pitch-fork, the water for the evening's tea is poured in ; 
which, consequently, possesses a flavour not unlike that 
of shank-soup. 

From this it will be seen, that, so far as cooking is 
concerned, a ^' cook of the mess " has very little to do ; 
merely carrying his provisions to and from the grand 
democratic cookery. Still, in some things, his office 
involves many annoyances. Twice a week butter and 
cheese are served out — so much to each man — and the 
mess-cook has the sole charge of these delicacies. The 
great difficulty consists in so catering for the mess, 
touching these luxuries, as to satisfy all. Some guzzlers 
are for devouring the butter at a meal, and finishing 
off with the cheese the same day; others contend for 
saving it ,up against Banyan Day, when there is 
nothing but beef and bread; and others, again, are for 
taking a very small bit of butter and cheese, by way of 
dessert, to each and every meal through the week. 
All this gives rise to endless disputes, debates, and 
altercations. 

Sometimes, with his mess-cloth — ^a square of painted 
canvass — set out on deck between the guns, garnished 
with pots, and pans, and Hds, you see the mess-cook 
seated on a match-tub at its head, his trowser legs 
rolled up and arms bared, presiding over the convivial 
party. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 93 

" Now, men, you can*t have any butter to-day. I'm 
saving it up for to-morrow. You donH know the value 
of butter, men. You, Jim, take your hoof off the 
cloth ! Devil take me, if some of you chaps haven't no 
more manners than so many swines ! Qoick, men, 
quick; bear a hand, and ^ scoffs (eat) away. — Fve got 
my to-morrow's duff to make yet, and some of you 
fellows keep scoffing as if I had nothing to do but sit 
still here on this here tub here, and look on. There, 
there, men, you've all had enough ; so sail away out of 
this, and let me clear up the wreck." 

In this strain would one of the periodical cooks of 
mess No. 15 talk to us. He was a tall, resolute fellow, 
who had once been a breakman on a railroad, and he 
kept us all pretty straight ; from his fiat there was no 
appeal. 

But it was not thus when the turn came to others 
among us. Then it was, look out for squalls. The 
business of dining became a bore, and digestion was 
seriously impaired by the unamiable discourse we had 
over our salt horse. 

I sometimes thought that the junks of lean pork — 
which were boiled in their own bristles, and looked 
gaunt and grim, like pickled chins of half-famished, 
unwashed Cossacks — ^had something to do with creating 
the bristling bitterness at times prevailing in our mess. 
The men tore off the tough hide from their pork, as if 
they were Indians scalping Christians. 



94 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

Some cursed the cook for a rogue, who kept from us 
our butter and cheese, in order to make away with it 
himself in an underhand manner ; selling it at a 
premium to other messes, and thus accumulating 
a princely fortune at our expense. Others anathema- 
tized him for his slovenliness, casting, hypercritical 
glances into their pots and pans, and scraping them 
with their knives. Then he would be railed at for his 
miserable '^duflfs,'' and other short-coming prepa- 
rations. 

Marking all this from the beginning, I, White- 
Jacket, was sorely troubled with the idea, that, in the 
course of time, my own turn would come round to 
undergo the same objurgations. How to escape, I 
knew not. However, when the dreaded period arrived, 
I received the keys of office (the keys of the mess- 
chest) with a resigned temper, and offered up a devout 
ejaculation for fortitude under the trial. I resolved, 
please Heaven, to approve myself an unexceptionable 
caterer, and the most impartial of stewards. 

The first day there was " rfwjf " to make — a business 
which devolved upon the mess-cooks, though the 
boiling of it pertained to Old Coffee and his deputies. 
I made up my mind to lay myself out on that duff; to 
centre all my energies upon it ; to put the very soul of 
art into it, and achieve an unrivalled dvff- — a dvff that 
should put out of conceit all other duffs ^ and for ever 
make my administration memorable. 



THE WORLD m A MAN-OF-WAB. 95 

From the proper functionary the flour was obtained, 
and the raisins; the beef-fat, or ^' slush'' from Old 
CoflFee; and the requisite supply of water from the 
scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to 
compare their receipts for making ^^ dufis;'' and having 
well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice 
item to make an original receipt of my own, with due 
deliberation and solemnity I proceeded to business. 
Placing the component parts in a tin pan, I kneaded 
them together for an hour, entirely reckless as to pulmo- 
nary considerations, touching the ruinous expenditure 
of breath ; and having decanted the semi-liquid dough 
into a canvass-bag, secured the muzzle, tied on the 
talley, and delivered it to Rose-water, who dropped the 
precious bag into the coppers, along with a score or two 
of others. 

Eight bells had struck. The boatswain and his 
mates had piped the hands to dinner ; my mess-cloth 
was set out, and my messmates were assembled, knife 
in hand, all ready to precipitate themselves upon the 
devoted duff. Waiting at the grand cookery till my 
turn came,, I received the bag of pudding, and gallant- 
ing it into the mess, proceeded to loosen the string. 

It was an anxious, I may say, a fearful moment. My 
hands trembled ; every eye was upon me ; my reputa- 
tion and credit were at stake. Slowly I undressed the 
duff^ dandling it upon my knee, much as a nurse does a 
baby about bed-time. The excitement increased, as 



96 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

I curled down the bag from the pudding ; it became 
intense, when at last I plumped it into the pan, held 
up to receive it by an eager hand. Bim ! it fell like a 
man shot down in a riot*. Distraction ! It was harder 
than a sinner's heart; yea, tough as the cock that 
crowed on the mom that Peter told a lie. 

" Gentlemen of the mess, for heaven's sake ! permit 
me one word. I have done my duty by that duff — I 
have — '' 

But they beat down my excuses with a storm of 
criminations. One present proposed that the fatal 
pudding should be tied round my neck, like a mill- 
stone, and myself pushed overboard. No use, no use ; 
I had failed; ever after, that duff lay heavy at my 
stomach and my heart. 

After this, I grew desperate; despised popularity; 
returned scorn for scorn ; till at length my week ex- 
pired, and in the duff-bag I transferred the keys of 
office to the next man on the roll. 

Somehow, there had never been a very cordial feeling 
between this mess and me; all along they had nou- 
rished a prejudice against my white jacket. They must 
have harboured the silly fancy that in it I gave myself 
airs, and wore it in order to look consequential ; perhaps, 
as a cloak to cover pilferings of tit-bits from the mess. 
But to out with the plain truth, they themselves were 
not a very irreproachable set. Considering the sequel 
I am coming to, this avowal may be deemed sheer 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 97 

malice; but for all that^ I cannot avoid speaking my 
mind. 

After my week of office^ the mess gradually changed 
their behaviour to me ; they cut me to the heart ; they 
became cold and reserved; seldom or never addressed 
me at meal-times urithout invidious allusions to my 
duff^ and also to my jacket^ and its dripping in wet 
weather upon the mess-cloth. However, I had no idea 
that any thing serious, on their part, was brewing; but 
alas ! so it turned out. 

We were assembled at supper one evening, when I 
noticed certain winks and silent hints tipped to the 
cook, who presided. He was a little, oily fellow, who had 
once kept an oyster-cellar ashore ; he bore me a grudge. 
Looking down on the mess-cloth, he observed that 
some fellows never knew when their room was better 
than their company. This being a maxim of indiscri- 
minate application, of course I silently assented to it, 
as any other reasonable man would have done. But 
this remark was followed up by another, to the effect 
that not only did some fellows never know when their 
room was better than their company, but they persisted 
in staying when their company wasnH wanted ; and by 
so doing disturbed the serenity of society at large. But 
this, also, was a general observation that could not be 
gainsayed. A long and ominous pause ensued ; during 
which I perceived every eye upon me, and my white 
jacket ; while the «ook went on to enlarge upon the 

VOL. I. F 



98 WHITE. JACKET ; OE, 

disagreeableness of a perpetually damp garment in the 
mess^ especially when that garment was white. This 
was coming nearer home. 

Yes, they were going to black-ball me ; but I resolved 
to sit it out a little longer; never dreaming that my 
moralist would proceed to extremities while all hands 
were present. But bethinking him that by going this 
roundabout way he would never get at his object, he 
went off on another tack ; apprising me, in substance, 
that he was instructed by the whole mess> then and 
there assembled, to give me warning to seek out ano- 
ther club, as they did not longer fancy the society 
either of myself or my jacket. 

I was shocked. Such a want of tact and delicacy ! 
Common propriety suggested that a point-blank intima- 
tion of that nature should be conveyed in a private 
interview ; or, still better, by note. I immediately rose, 
tucked my jacket about me, bowed, and departed. 

And now, to do myself justice, I must add that, the 
next day, I was received with open arms by a glorious 
set of fellows — mess No. 1! — numbering among the 
rest, my noble Captain Jack Chase. 

Thifl meas was prindpaUy composed of the headmost 
men of the gun-deck ; and, out of a pardonable self- 
conceit, they called themselves the " Forty-two-pounder 
Club /' meaning that they were, one and all, fellows of 
large intellectual and corporeal calibre. Their mess- 
cloth was well located. On their starboard hand was 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OJ-WAE. 99 

Mess No, 2, embracing sundry rare jokers and high 
livers, who waxed gay and epicurean over their salt 
fare, and were known as the " Society for the Destruc^ 
Hon of Beef and Pork." On the larboard hand was 
Mess No. 31, made up entirely of fore-top-men, a dash- 
ing, blaze-away set of man-of-war's-men, who called 
themselves the "Cape Horn Snorters and Neversink 
Invineibles,^' Opposite, was one of the marine messes, 
mustering the aristocracy of the marine corps— the two 
corporals, the drummer and fifer, and some six or eight 
rather gentlemanly privates, native-bom Americans, 
who had served in the Seminole campaigns of Florida ; 
and they now enlivened their salt fare with stories of 
wild ambushes in the everglades; and one of them 
related a surprising tale of his hand-to-hand encounter 
with Osceola, the Indian chief, whom he fought one 
morning from daybreak till breakfast time. This slash- 
ing private also boasted that he could take a chip from 
between your teeth at twenty paces ; he offered to bet 
any amount on it ; and as he could get no one to hold 
the chip, his boast remained for ever good. 

Besides many other attractions which the Forty-ttvo- 
pounder' Clnb famished, it had this one special advan- 
tage, that, owing to there being so many petty officers 
in it, all the members of the mess were exempt from 
doing duty as cooks and stewards. A fellow called a 
steady-cook, attended to that business during the entire 
cruise. He was a long, lank, pallid varlet, going by 

r2 



100 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

the name of Shanks. In very warm weather this 
Shanks would sit at the foot of the mess-cloth^ fanning 
himself with the front flap of his frock or shirt, which 
he inelegantly wore over his trowsers. Jack Chase, the 
President of the Club, frequently remonstrated against 
this breach of good manners ; but the steady-cook had 
somehow contracted the habit, and it proved incurable. 
For a time. Jack Chase, out of a polite nervousness 
touching myself, as a newly-elected member of the club, 
would frequently endeavour to excuse to me the vul- 
garity of Shanks. One day he wound up his remarks 
by the philosophic reflection — ^' But White- Jacket, my 
dear fellow, what can you expect of him ? . Our real 
misfortune is, that our noble club should be obliged to 
dine with its cook.'' 

There were several of these steady-cooks on board: 
men of no mark or consideration whatever in the ship ; 
lost to all noble promptings ; sighing for no worlds to 
conquer, and perfectly contented with mixing their 
duffsy and spreading their mess-cloths, and mustering 
their pots and pans together three times every day for 
a three years' cruise. They were very seldom to be 
seen on the spar-deck, but kept below out of sight. 



THE WOBXD m A ICAK-Or-WAK. 101 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OSSEIULL TBAIKIKO IN ▲ MAN-OF-WAR. 

To a quietj contemplative character^ averse to uproar, 
undue exercise of his bodily members^ and all kind of 
useless confusion, nothing can be more distressing than 
a proceeding in all men-of-war called "general quarters J^ 
And well may it be so called, since it amounts to 
a general drawing and quartering of all the parties 
concerned* 

As the specific object for which a man-of-war is built 
and put into commission is to fight and fire off cannon, 
it is, of course, deemed indispensable that the crew 
should be duly instructed in the art and mystery in- 
volved. Hence these " general quarters,'' which is a 
mustering of all hands to their stations at the guns on 
the several decks, and a sort of sham-fight with an 
imaginary foe. 

The summons is given by the ship's drummer, who 
strikes a peculiar beat — short, broken, rolling, shuffling 
— like the sound made by the march into battle of iron- 
heeled grenadiers. It is a regular tune, with a fine song 



102 white-jacket; or, 

composed to it ; the words of the chorus, being most 
artistically arranged, may give some idea of the air : — 

" Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are oar men. 
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady, 
To fight and to conquer, again and again." 

In warm weather this pastime at the guns is exceed- 
ingly unpleasant, to say the least, and throws a quiet 
man into a violent passion and perspiration. For one, 
I ever abominated it. 

I have a heart like Julius Caesar, and upon occasion 
would fight like Caius Marcius Coriolanus. If my be- 
loved and for ever glorious country should be ever in 
jeopardy from invaders, let Congress put me on a war- 
horse, in the vanguard, and then see how I will acquit 
myself. But to toil and sweat in a fictitious encounter; 
to squander the precious breath of my precious body in 
a ridiculous fight of shams and pretensions ; to hurry 
about the decks, pretending to carry the killed and 
wounded below; to be told that I must consider the 
ship blowing up, in order to exercise myself in presence 
of mind, and prepare for a real explosion ; all this I 
despise, as beneath a true tar and man of valour. 

These were my sentiments at the time, and these 
remain my sentiments still ; but as, while on board the 
frigate, my liberty of thought did not extend to liberty 
of expression, I was obliged to keep these sentiments 
to myself: though, indeed, I had some thoughts of 
addressing a letter, marked private and confidential^ to 
his Honour the Commodore, on the subject. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 103 

My station at the batteries was at one of the thirty*- 
two-pound carronades^ on the starboard side of the 
quarter-deck.* 

I did not fancy this station at all ; for it is well known 
on shipboard that^ in time of action^ the quarter-deck is 
one of the most dangerous posts of a man-of-war. The 
reason is^ that the officers of the highest rank are there 
stationed; and the enemy have an ungentlemanly way 
of target-shooting at their buttons. If we should 
chance to engage a ship^ then^ who could tell but some 
bunghng small-arm marksman in the enemy's tops 
might put a bullet through me instead of the Commo- 
dore ? If they hit Aim, no doubt he would not feel it 
much, for he was used to that sort of thing, and, indeed, 
had a bullet in him already ; whereas, / was altogether 

* For the benefit of a Quaker reader here andthere^ a word or two in 
explanation of a carronade may not be amiss. The carronade is a gun 
comparatiyely short and light for its calibre. A carronade throwing a 
thirty-two-pound shot weighs considerably less than a long-gan only 
throwing a twenty-four-pound shot. It further differs from a long-gun, 
in working with a joint and bolt underneath, instead of the short arms 
or trunnUyM at>the sides. Its canriduget Ukewise, is quite different from 
that of a long-gun, having a sort of sliding apparatus, something like an 
extension dining-table ; the goose on it, howeyer, is a tough one, and 
Tillainously stuf^d with most indigestible dumplings. Point-blank, the 
range of a carronade does not exceed one hundred and fifty yards, much 
less than the range of a long-gun. When of large calibre, however, it 
throws within that limit, Paixhan shot, all manner of shells and com- 
bustibles, with great effect, being a very destructive engine at close 
quarters. This piece is now very generally found mounted in the bat- 
teries of the EngUsh and American navies. The quarterdeck arma- 
ments of most modem frigates wholly consist of carronades. The name 
is derived from the village of Carron, in Scotland, at whose celebrated 
foundaries this iron Attila was first cast. 



104 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

unaccustomed to having blue pills playing round my 
head in such an indiscriminate way. Besides^ ours was 
a flag-ship; and every one knows what a peculiarly 
dangerous predicament the quarter-deck of Nelson's 
flag-ship was in at the battle of Trafalgar; how the lofty 
tops of the enemy were full of soldiers^ peppering away 
at the English admiral and his officers. Many a 
poor sailor^ at the guns of that quarter-deck^ must have 
received a bullet intended for some wearer of an epaulet. 
By candidly confessing my feelings on this subject, 
I do by no means invalidate my claims to being held a 
man of prodigious valour. I merely state my invincible 
repugnance to being shot for somebody else. If I am 
shot, be it with the express understanding in the shooter 
that I am the identical person intended so to be served. 
That Thracian who, with his compliments, sent an arrow 
into the king of Macedon, superscribed, " For Philip's 
right eye,'' set a fine example to all warriors. The 
hurried, hasty, indiscriminate, reckless, abandoned 
manner in which both saUors aad soldiers nowadays 
fight is really painful to any serious-minded, methodical 
old gentleman, especially if he chance to have systema- 
tized his mind as an accoimtant. There is little or no 
skill and bravery about it. Two parties, armed with 
lead and old iron, envelop themselves in a cloud of 
smoke, and pitch their lead and old iron about in all 
directions. If you happen to be in the way, you are hit ; 
possibly killed ; if not, you escape. In sea actions, if 



THE WOULD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 105 

by good or bad luck^ as the case may be^ a round shot 
fired at random through the smoke happens to send 
overboard your foremast^ another to unship your rudder, 
there you Ke crippled, pretty much at the mercy of 
your foe ; who, accordingly, pronounces himself victor, 
though that honour properly belongs to the law of gra- 
vitation operating on the enemy's balls in the smoke. 
Instead of tossing this old lead and iron into the air, 
therefore, it would be much better amicably to toss up 
a copper and let heads win. 

The carronade at which I was stationed was known 
as " Gun No. 5/' on the First Lieutenant's quarter-bill. 
Among our gun's crew, however, it was known as Black 
Bet. This name was bestowed by the captain of the 
gun — a fine negro — ^in honour of his sweetheart, a co- 
loured lady of Philadelphia. Of Black Bet I was ram- 
mer and sponger; and ram and sponge I did, like a 
good fellow. I have no doubt that, had I and my gun 
been at the battle of the Nile, we would mutually have 
immortalized ourselves ; the ramming-pole would have 
been hung up in Westminster Abbey ; and I, ennobled 
by the king, besides receiving the illustrious honour of 
an autograph letter firom his Majesty through the 
perfumed right hand of his private secretary. 

But it was terrible work to help run in and out of the 
port-hole that amazing mass of metal, especially as the 
thing must be done in a trice. Then, at the summons 
of a horrid, rasping rattle swayed by the Captain in 

p3 



108 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

person^ we were made to rush from our gims^ seize 
pikes and pistols^ and repel an imaginary army of 
boarders, who, by a fiction of the officers, were supposed 
to be assailing all sides of the ship at once. After cut- 
ting and slashing at them awhile, we jumped back to 
our guns, and again went to jerking our elbows. 

Meantime, a loud cry is heard of " Fire ! fire 1 fire I" 
in the fore-top; and a regular engine, worked by a set 
of Bowery-boy tars, is forthwith set to playing streams 
of water aloft. And now it is " Fire ! fire ! fire V^ on, 
the main-deck; and the entire ship is in as great 
a commotion as if a whole city ward were in a 
blaze. 

Are our officers of the navy utterly unacquainted with 
the laws of good health ? Do they not know that this 
Tiolent exercise, taking place just after a hearty dinner, 
as it generally does, is eminently calculated to breed 
the dyspepsia? There was no satisfaction in dining; 
the flavour of every mouthful was destroyed by the 
thought that the next moment the cannonading drum 
might be beating to quarters. 

Such a sea-martinet was our Captain, that sometimes 
we were roused from our hammocks at night; when 
a scene would ensue that it is not in the power of pen 
and ink to describe. Five hundred men spring to their 
feet, dress themselves, take up their bedding, and run 
to the nettings and stow it; then hie to their stations 
— each man jostling his neighbour — some alow, some 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 107 

aloft ; some this w«y, some that ; and in less than five 
minutes the Mgate is ready for action^ and stiU as the 
grave ; almost every man precisely where he would be 
were an enemy actually about to be engaged. The 
Gunner, hke a Cornwall miner in a cave, is burrowing 
down in the magazine under the "Ward-room, which is 
lighted by battle«lantems, placed behind glazed glass 
bull's-eyes inserted in the bulk-head. The Powder^ 
monkeys, or boys, who fetch and carry cartridges, are 
scampering to and fro among the guns : and the first 
and second loaders stand ready to receive their supplies. 

These Powder-monkeys, as they are called, enact a 
curious part in time of action. The entrance to the 
magazine on the berth-deck, where they procure their 
food for the guns, is guarded by a woollen screen ; and 
a gunner's mate, standing behind it, thrusts out the 
cartridges through a small arm-hole in this screen. The 
enemy's shot (perhaps red-hot) are flying in all direc- 
tions ; and to protect their cartridges, the powder- 
monkeys hurriedly wrap them up in their jackets ; and 
with all haste scramble up the ladders to their respec*- 
tive guns, like eating-house waiters hurrying along with 
hot cakes for breakfast. 

At general quarters the shot-boxes are uncovered; 
showing the grape-shot — aptly so called, for they pre- 
cisely resemble bunches of the fruit; though, to receive 
a bunch of iron grapes in the abdomen would be but 
a sorry dessert ; and also showing the canister-shot — 



108 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

old iron of various sorts^ packed in a tin case^ like 
a tea-caddy. 

Imagine some midnight craft sailing down on ker 
enemy thus; twenty-four pounders levelled, matches 
lighted, and each captain of his gun at his post ! 

But if verily going into action, then would the 
Neversink have made still Airther preparations; for 
however aUke in some things, there is always a vast 
difference-if you somid them-between a reality and 
a sham. Not to speak of the pale sternness of the 
men at their guns at such a junctiu*e, and the choked 
thoughts at their hearts, the ship itself would here and 
there present a far different appearance: something 
like that of an extensive mansion preparing for a grand 
entertainment, when folding-doors are withdrawn, cham- 
bers converted into drawing-rooms, and every inch of 
available space thrown into one continuous whole. For 
previous to an action, every bulk-head of a man-of-war 
is knocked down; great guns are run out of the Com- 
modore^s parlour windows; nothing separates the ward- 
room officers^ quarters from those of the men, but an 
ensign used for a curtain. The sailors^ mess-chests are 
tumbled down into the hold ; and the hospital cots — of 
which all men-of-war carry a large supply— are dragged 
forth from the sail-room, and piled near at hand to 
receive the wounded ; amputation-tables are ranged in 
the cock-pit or in the tierSj whereon to carve the bodies 
of the maimed. The yards are slung in chains ; fire- 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAIL 109 

flcreens distributed here and there ; hillocks of caimon- 
balls piled between the guns; shot-plugs suspended 
within easy reach from the beams ; and solid masses of 
wads^ big as Dutch cheeses^ braced to the cheeks of the 
gun-carriages. 

No small diflference^ also^ would be visible in the 
wardrobe of both officers and men. The officers gene- 
rally fight as dandies dance, namely, in silk stockings ; 
inasmuch as, in case of being wounded in the leg, the 
silk-hose can be more easily drawn off by the Surgeon; 
cotton sticks, and works into the wound. An econo- 
mical captain, while taking care to case his legs in silk, 
might yet see fit to save his best suit, and fight in his 
old clothes. For, besides that an old garment might 
much better be cut to pieces than a new one, it must 
be a mighty disagreeable thing to die in a stiff, tight- 
breasted coat, not yet worked easy under the armpits. 
At such times, a man should feel free, unencumbered, 
and perfectly at his ease in point of straps and sus- 
penders. No ill-will concerning his tailor should 
intrude upon his thoughts of eternity. Seneca under- 
stood this, when he chose to die naked in a batii. And 
man-of-war's-men understand it, also ; for most of them, 
in battle, strip to the waistbands ; wearing nothing but 
a pair of duck-trowsers, and a handkerchief round their 
head. 

A captain combining a heedful patriotism with 
economy, would probably " bend " his old topsails 



110 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

before going into battle^ instead of exposing his best 
canvass to be riddled to pieces ; for it is generally the 
case that the enemy^s shot flies high. Unless allow- 
ance is made for it in pointing the tube^ at long-gun 
distance^ the slightest roll of the ship^ at the time of 
firings would send a shot^ meant for the hull^ high over 
the top-gallant yards. 

But besides these differences between a sham-fight 
at general quarters and a real cannonading^ the aspect 
of the ship^ at the beating of the retreat^ would^ in the 
latter case^ be very dissimilar to the neatness and uni- 
formity in the former. 

Then our bulwarks might look like the walls of the 
houses in West Broadway in New York, after beii^ 
broken into and burned out by the Negro Mob. Our 
stout masts and yards might be lying about decks, like 
tree-boughs after a tornado in a piece of woodland ; our 
dangling ropes, cut and sundered in all directions, 
would be bleeding tar at every yam j and strewn with 
jagged splinters from our wounded planks, the gun- 
deck might resemble a carpenter's shop. Then^ when 
all was over, and all hands would be piped to take 
down the hammocks from the exposed nettings (where 
they play the part of the cotton bales at New Orleans), 
we might find bits of broken shot, iron bolts, and 
bullets in our blankets. And, while smeared with 
blood like butchers, the surgeon and his mates would 
be amputating arms and legs on the berth-deck, an 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-Of-WAB. Ill 

underling of the carpenter's gang would be new-legging 
and arming tlie broken chairs and tables in the Com- 
modore's cabin^ while the rest of his squad would be 
splicing B,ni fishing the shattered masts and yards. The 
scupper-holes having discharged the last rivulet of 
bloody the decks would be washed down; and the 
galley-cooks would be going fore and aft^ sprinkling 
them with hot vinegar^ to take out the shambles' smell 
from the planks ; which, unless some such means are 
employed, often create a highly offensive effluvia for 
weeks after a fight. 

Then, upon mustering the men, and calling the 
quarter-bills by the light of a battle-lantern, many a 
wounded seaman, with his arm in ft sling, would answer 
for some poor shipmate who could never more make 
answer for himself: — 

'' Tom Brown ?" 

'' Killed, sir." 

"Jack Jewel?" 

" Killed, sir.^ 

" Joe Hardy V 

" Killed, sir." 

And opposite all these poor fellows' names, down 
would go on the quarter-bills the bloody marks of red 
ink-a murderer's flmd, fitly used on these occasions. 



}99 



112 WHITE-JACKET J OR, 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AW AT I SECOND, THIBD, AND FOURTH OUTTSBS, AWAT ! 

It was the morning succeeding one of these general 
quarters that we picked up a life-buoy, descried float- 
ing by. 

It was a circular mass of cork, about eight inches 
thick and four feet in diameter, covered with tarred 
canvass. All round its circumference there trailed a 
nimiber of knotted ropes^-ends, terminating in fanciful 
Turks' heads. These were the life-lines, for the drown- 
ing to clutch. Inserted into the middle of the cork 
was an upright, carved pole, somewhat shorter than a 
pike-staff. The whole buoy was embossed with barna- 
cles, and its sides festooned with sea-weed. Dolphins 
were sporting and flashing around it, and one white 
bird was hovering over the top of the pole. Long ago, 
this thing must have been thrown overboard to save 
some poor wretch, who must have been drowned; 
while even the life-buoy itself had drifted away out of 
sight. 

The forecastle-men fished it up from the bows, and 
the seamen thronged round it. 

''Bad luck! bad luck!'' cried the Captain of the 
Head ; " we'll number one less before long." 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 113 

The ship's cooper strolled by : he, to whose depart- 
ment it belongs to see that the ship's life-buoys are 
kept in good order. 

In men-of-war, night and day, week in and week 
out, two life-buoys are kept depending from the stem ; 
and two men, with hatchets in their hands, pace up 
and down, ready at the first cry to cut the cord and 
drop the buoys overboard. Every two hours they are 
regularly reUeved, like sentinels on guard. No similar 
precautions are adopted in the merchant or whaling 
service. 

Thus deeply solicitous to preserve human life are the 
regulations of men-of-war ; and seldom has there been 
a better illustration of this solicitude than at the battle 
of Trafalgar, when, after " several thousand^' French 
seamen had been destroyed, according to Lord Colling- 
wood, and, by the official returns, sixteen hundred and 
ninety Englishmen were killed or wounded, the captains 
of the surviving ships ordered the life-buoy sentries 
from their death-dealing guns to their vigilant posts, as 
officers of the Humane Society. 

'^ There, Bungs I'' cried Scrimmage, a sheet-anchor- 
man,* " there 's a good pattern for you ; make us a 
brace of life-buoys like that ; something that will save 
a man, and not fill and sink under him, as those leaky 
quarter-casks of yours will the first time there 's occa- 

* In addition to the Bower-anchors carried on her bows, a frigate 
carries large anchors in her fore-chains, called Sheet-anchors, Hence, 
the old seamen stationed in that part of a man-of-war are called Sheet- 
aatchoT-men, 



114 WHITE- JACKET; OB, 

sion to drop 'em. I came near pitcliiiig off the bow- 
sprit the other day; and^ when I scrambled inboard 
again^ I went aft to get a squint at 'em. Why^ Bungs, 
they are all open between the staves. Shame on you I 
Suppose you yourself should fall overboard, and find 
yourself going down with buoys under you of your own 
making — ^what then ?'' 

" I never go aloft, and don't intend to fall overboard," 
replied Bungs. 

''Don't believe it!" cried the sheet-anchor-man; 
" you lopers that live about the decks here are nearer 
the bottom of the sea than the light hand that looses the 
main-royal. Mind your eye. Bungs — ^mind your eye 1" 

" I will," retorted Bui^ ; " and you mind yours !" 

Next day, just at dawn, I was startled from my 
hammock by the cry of, ^^All hands about ship and 
shorten sail /" Springing up the ladders, I found that 
an unknown man had fallen overboard from the chains; 
and darting a glance toward the poop, perceived, from 
their gestures, that the Ufe-sentries there had cut away 
the buoys. 

It was blowing a fresh breeze ; the frigate was going 
fast through the water. But the one thousand arms of 
five hundred men soon tossed her about on the other 
tack, and checked her further headway. 

" Do you see him?" shouted the officer of the watch 
through his trumpet, hailing the main-mast-head. 
'' Man or buoy, do you see either?" 

'' See nothing, sir," was the reply. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 115 

" Clear away the cutters !'* was the next order. 
'' Bugler ! call away the second^ thirds and fourth cut- 
ters' crews. Hands by the tackles \" 

In less than three minutes the three boats were down. 
More hands were wanted in one of them^ and, among 
others, I jumped in to make up the deficiency. 

'' Now, men, give way ! and each man look out along 
his oar, and look sharp \" cried the officer of our boat. 
For a time, in perfect silence, we slid up and down the 
great seething swells of the sea, but saw nothing. 

" There, if s no use,'' cried the officer ; " he's gone, 
whoever he is. Pull away, men — ^pull away ! they'll be 
recalling us soon." 

"Let him drown!" cried the strokesman; ''he's 
spoiled my watch below for me." 

" Who the devil is he ? " cried another. 

'' He's one who'll never have a coffin!" replied a 
third. 

" No, no ! they'll never sing out, ' All hands bury the 
dead ! ' for him, my hearties !" cried a fourth. 

" Silence," said the officer, '' and look along your 
oars." But the sixteen oarsmen still continued their 
talk ; and, after pulling about for two or three hours, 
we spied the recall-signal at the frigate's fore-f -gallant- 
mast-head, and returned on board, having seen no sign 
even of the life-buoys. 

The boats were hoisted up, the yards braced forward, 
and away we bowled — one man less. 



116 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

"Muster aH hands 1'^ was now the order; when, 
upon calling the roll, the cooper was the only man 
missing. 

'^ I told you so, men," cried the Captain of the Head ; 
" I said we would lose a man before long." 

" Bungs, is it?" cried Scrimmage, the sheet-anchor- 
man ; " I told him his buoys wouldn't save a drowning 
man ; and now he has proved it ! 



99 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 117 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



A HAN-OF-WAA FULL AS A NUT. 



It was necessary to supply the lost cooper's place ; 
accordingly^ word was passed for all who belonged to 
that calling to muster at the main-mast^ in order that 
one of them might be selected. Thirteen men obeyed 
the summons— a circumstance illustratiye of the fact 
that many good handicraftsmen are lost to their trades 
and the world by serving in men-of-war. Indeed^ from 
a frigate's crew might be culled out men of all caUings 
and vocations^ from a backslidden parson to a broken- 
down comedian. The Navy is the asylum for the per- 
verse^ the home of the unfortunate. Here the sons of 
adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the 
children of calamity meet the offspring of sin. Bank- 
rupt brokers, boot-blacks, blacklegs, and blacksmiths 
here assemble together; and cast-away tinkers, watch- 
makers, quill-drivers, cobblers, doctors, farmers, and 
lawyers compare past experiences and talk of old times. 
Wrecked on a desert shore, a man-of-war's crew could 
quickly found an Alexandria by themselves, and fiU it 
with all the things which go to make up a capital. 

Frequently, ift one and the same time, you see 
every trade in Operation on the gun-deck — coopering. 



118 WHTEB- JACKET ; OR, 

carpentering, tailoring, tinkering, blacksmithing, rope- 
making, preaching, gambling, and fortune-telling. 

In truth, a man-of-war is a city afloat, with long 
avenues set out with guns instead of trees, and nume- 
rous shady lanes, courts, and by-ways. The quarter- 
deck is a grand square, park, or parade ground, with 
a great Pittsfield elm, in the shape of the main-mast, 
at one end, and fronted at the other by the palace of 
the Commodore's cabin. 

Or, rather, a man-of-war is a lofty, walled, and gar- 
risoned town, like Quebec, where the tlioroughfiires are 
mostly ramparts, and peaceable citizens meet armed 
sentries at every corner. 

Or it is like the lodging-houses in Paris, turned 
upside down ; the first floor, or deck, being rented by 
a lord; the second, by a select club of gentlemen; the 
third, by crowds of artisans ; and the fourth, by a whole 
rabble of common people. 

For even thus is it in a frigate, where the commander 
has a whole cabin to himself on the spar-deck, the 
lieutenants their ward-room underneath, and the mass 
of sailors swing their hammocks under all. 

And with its long rows of port-hole casements, each 
revealing the muzzle of a cannon, a man-of-war re- 
sembles a three-story house in a suspicious part of the 
town, with a basement of indefinite depth, and ugly- 
looking fellows gaaing out at the windows. 



THE WOULD W A IIAN-OF-WAB. 119 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THB JAOEBT ALOFT. 



Again must I call attention to my white jacket^ which 
about this time came near being the death of me. 

I am of a meditative humour^ and at sea used often 
to mount aloft at nighty and^ seating myself on one of 
the upper yards, tuck my jacket about me and give 
loose to reflection. In some ships in which I have done 
this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studying 
astronomy — ^which, indeed, to some extent, was the 
ease — and that my object in mounting aloft was to get 
a nearer view of the stars, supposing me, of course, to 
be short-sighted. A very siUy conceit of theirs, some 
may say, but not so silly after all ; for surely the ad- 
vantage of getting nearer an object by two himdred 
feet is not to be underrated. Then, to study the stars 
upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the 
Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from 
the plains. 

And it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us 
into the universe of things, and makes us a part of the 
AB, to think that, wherever we ocean-wanderers rove, we 
have still the same glorious old stars to keep us com- 
pany; that they still shine onward and on, for ever 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 121 

Bat when White-Jacket speaks of the rover's life^ he 
means not Ufe in a man-of-war, which, with its martial 
fiirmalities and thousand vices, stabs to the heart the 
soul of all free-and-easy honourable rovers. 

I have said that I was wont to mount up aloft and 
muse ; and thus was it with me the night following the 
loss of the cooper. Ere my watch in the top had 
expired, high up on the main-royal-yard I reclined, the 
white jacket folded around me like Sir John Moore in 
his frosted cloak. 

Eight bells had struck, and my watchmates had hied 
to their hammocks, and the other watch had gone to 
their stations, and the top below me was ftOl of strangers, 
and still almost one hundred feet above even them I lay 
entranced; now dozing, now dreaming ; now thinking of 
things past, and anon of the life to come. Well-timed 
was the latter thought, for the life to come was much 
nearer overtaking me than I then could imagine. 
Perhaps I was half conscious at last of a tremulous 
Toice hailing the main-royal-yard from the top. But ii' 
80, the' consciousness glided away from me, and left me 
in Lethe. But when, like lightning, the yard dropped 
under me, and instinctively I clung with both hands to 
the " tie/' then I came to myself with a rush, and felt 
something like a choking hand at my throat. For an 
instant I thought the Gulf Stream in my head was 
whirling me away to. eternity; but the next moment 
I found myself standing; the yard had descended to 

VOL. I. a 



132 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

the cap : and shakiiig myself in my jacket^ I felt that I 
was unharmed and aliye. 

Who had done this ? who had made this attempt on- 
my life ? thought I, as I ran down the rigging. 

^^ Here it comes ! — ^Lord ! Lord ! here it comes ! 
See, see I it is white as a hammock/' 

" Who's coming ? '' I shouted^ springing down into 
the top ; *' who's white as a hammock ? " 

" Bless my soul. Bill, it's only White- Jacket— that 
infernal White- Jacket again 1 " 

It seems they had spied a moving white spot there 
aloft, and, sailor-Uke, had taken me for the ghost of 
the cooper; and after hailing me, and bidding me 
descend, to test my corporeality, and getting no answer, 
they had lowered the halyards in affiight* 

In a rage I tore oS the jacket, and threw it on the 
deck. 

"Jacket,'^ cried I, ^'you must change your com- 
plexion 1 you must hie to the dyer's and be dyed, that 
X may live. I have but one poor life, White- Jacket, 
and that life I cannot spare* I cannot consent to die 
for you, but be dyed you must for me. You can dye 
many times without injury ; but I cannot die without 
irreparable loss, and running the eternal risk." 

So in the morning, jacket in hand, I repaired to the 
First Lieutenant, and related the narrow escape I had 
had during the night. I enlarged upon the general 
perils I ran in being taken for a ghost, and earnestly' 



THE WOaiD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 123 

besouglit him to relax his commands for once^ and give 
me an order on Brushy the captain of the paint-room^ 
for some black painty that my jacket might be painted 
of that colour. 

" Just look at it, Sir/' I added^ holding it up ; " did 
you ever see anything whiter ? Consider how it shines 
of a nighty like a bit of the Milky Way. A little painty 
Sir : — ^you cannot rdfiise.'' 

" The ship has no paint to spare/' he said; " you 
must get along without it." 

" Sir, every rain gives me a soaking ; — Cape Horn is 
at hand — six brushes-full would make it water-proof; 
and no longer would I be in peril of my life I " 

*' Can't help it, Sir; depwi; ! " 

I fear it will not be well with me in the end ; for if 
my own sios are to be foi^ven only as I forgive that 
hard-hearted and unimpresaible First Lieutenant, then 
pardon there is none for me. 

What ! when but one dab of paint would make a 
man of a ghost, and a Mackintosh of a herriug-net — 
to refuse it ! 

I am full. I can say no more. 



g2 



124 tmiTE^ACEET ; OR, 



CHAPTER XX 



HOW THET BLEXP IH A MAH-OI-WAK. 



No more of my luckless jacket for a while ; let me 
speak of my hammock, and the tribulations I endured 
therefrom. 

Give me plenty of room to swing it in; let me swing 
it between two date-trees on an Arabian plain; or ex* 
tend it diagonally from Moorish pillar to pillar^ in the 
open marble Court of the Lions in Granada's Alhambra : 
let me swing it on a high bluff of the Mississippi — one 
swing in the pure ether for every swing over the green 
grass ; or let me oscillate in it beneath the cool dome of 
St. Peter's ; or drop me in it^ as in a balloon, from the 
zenith, with the whole firmament to rock and expatiate 
in ; and I woidd not exchange my coarse canvass ham- 
mock for the grand state-bed, like a stately coach-and- 
four, in which they tuck in a king when he passes a 
night at Blenheim Castle. 

When you have the requisite room, you always have 
" spreaders^' in your hammock ; that is^ two horizontal 
sticks, one at each end, which serve to keep the sides 
apart, and create a wide vacancy between, wherein you 
can turn over and over — ^lay on this side or that; on 
yourback, if you please; stretch out your legs ; in shorty 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 125 

take your ease in your hammock; for of all inus^ your 
bed is the best. 

But when^ with five hundred other hammocks^ yours 
is crowded and jammed in on all sides^ on a frigate's 
berth-deck; the third from above; — when ^'yjreaders" 
are prohibited by an express edict from the Captain's 
cabin ; and every man about you is jealously watchfdl 
of the rights and privileges of his own proper hammock, 
as settled by law and usage; then j(mr hammock is 
your Bastile and canvass jug ; into which, or out of 
which, it is very hard to get ; and where sleep is but a 
mockery and a name. 

Eighteen inches a man is all they allow you; eighteen 
mches in width; in thai you must swing. Dreadful! 
they give you more swing than that at the gallows. 

During warm nights in the Tropics, your hammock 
is as a stew-pan; where you stew and stew, tiU you can 
almost hear yourself hiss. Vain are all stratagems to 
widen your accommodations. Let them catch you 
insinuating your boots or other articles in the head 
of your hammock, by way of a " spreader.'' Near and 
far, the whole rank and file of the row to which you 
belong feel the encroachment in an instant, and are 
clamorous till the guilty one is found out, and his pallet 
brought back to its bearings. 

. In platoons and squadrons, they all lie on a level; 
tibeir hammock clews crossing and recrossing in all 
dkections, so as to present one vast field-bed, midway 






lis ^'HITE- JACKET ; OB, 

between the ceiliiig and the floor; whicli are about five 
feet asunder. 

One extremely warm nighty dnring a cahn, when it 
was so hot that only a skeleton oould keep cool (£rc«i 
the firee current of air through its bones), after being 
drenched in my own peispiration, I managed to wedge 
myself out of my hammock ; and with what little 
strength I had leEGt, lowered myself gently to the dec^. 
Let me see now, tibiought I, whether my ingenuity can- 
not devise some method whereby I can have io<»ql to 
breathe and sleep at the same time. I have it I will 
lower my hammock underneath all these others ; and 
then — upon that separate and independadt level;, at 
least — I shall have ihe whole berth-deck to mysdf. 
Accordingly, I lowered %way my pallet to the desired 
point — about three inches from the floor — And crawled 
into it again. 

But, alas 1 this arrangement made such a sweeping 
semicircle of my hammock, that, while my head and 
feet were a.t par, the small of my back was settling 
down indefinitely; Z felt as if some gigantic archer 
had hold of me for a bow. 

But th^re was another plan left. I triced up my 
hammock with all my strength, so as to bring it wholly 
above the tiers of pallets around me. This done, by a 
last effort Z hoisted myself into it ; but alas I it was 
much worse than before. My luckless hammock was 
stiff and straight as a board ; and there I was — ^hdd out 



THE WOHIiD IN A MAN-OT-WAE. 127 

in it^ with, my nose against the ceilings like a dead man^s 
against the lid of his coffin. 

So at last I was fain to return to my old levels and 
moralize upon the folly^ in all arbitrary goyemments^ of 
striTing to get either behw or above those whom legisla- 
tion has placed upon an equality with yourself. 

Speaking of hammocks recalls a circumstance that 
happened one night in the Neversink. It was three or 
four times repeated, with various but not fatal results. 

The watch below was fast asleep on the berth-deck, 
where perfect silence was reigning, when a sudden 
shock and a groan roused up all hands ; and the hem of 
a pair of white trowsers vanished up one of the ladders 
4tt the fore-hatchway. 

We ran toward the groan, and found a man lying on 
the deck ; one end of his hammock having given way, 
pitching his head dose to three twenty-four-pound 
cannon-shot, which must have been purposely placed in 
that position. When it was discovered that this man 
had long been suspected of being an informer among 
the crew, little surprise and less pleasure were evinced 
at his narrow escape. 



128 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 



CHAPTER XXI. 

ONB BBASOV WHY JfAN-OF-WAR*S-HEir ABB, OBHBRALLT, 8H0BT-LI7E]>. 

I CANNOT quit this matter of the hammocks Mdthont 
making mention of a grievance among the sailors that 
ought to be redressed. 

In a man-of-war at sea, the sailors have watch and 
watch ; that is, through every twenty-four hours they 
are on and off duty every fotir hours. Now, the ham- 
mocks are piped down from the nettings (the open 
space for stowing them, running round the top of the 
bulwarks) a little after sunset, and piped up again when 
the forenoon watch is called, at eight o^dock in the 
morning ; so that during the daytime they are inacces- 
sible as pallets. This would be all weU enough, did the 
sailors have a complete night's rest ; but every other 
night at sea, one watch have only four hours in their 
hammocks. Indeed, deducting the time allowed for 
the other watch to turn out, for yourself to arrange 
your hammock, get into it, and fairly get asleep, it 
may be said that, every other night, you have but three 
hours' sleep in your hanmiock. Having then been <m 
ideck for twice four hours, at eight o'clock in the mom- 
ng your watch-below comes round, and you are not 
liable to duty until noon. Under like circumstances^ 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-Or-WAR. 129 

a merchant seaman goes to his bunk^ and has the benefit 
of a good long sleep. But in a man-of-war you can do 
no such thing; your hammock is very neatly stowed in 
the nettings^ and there it must remain till nightfall. 

But perhaps there is a comer for you somewhere 

along the batteries on the gun-deck, where you may 

: enjoy a snug nap. But as no one is allowed to recline 

on the larboard side of the gun-deck (which is reserved 

as a corridor for the officers when they go forward to 

» their smoking-room at the bridle-port)^ the starboard 

:side only is left to the seamen. But most of this side^ 

also^ is occupied by the carpenters^ sail-makers, barbers, 

«ad coopers. In short, so few are the comers where 

^ou can snatch a nap during daytime in a £rigate, that 

not .one in ten of the watch, who have been on deck 

,eight hours, can get a wink of sleep till the following 

night, Repeatedly, after by good fortune securing a 

comer, I have been roused from it by some functionary 

commissioned to keep it dear. 

OflF Cape Horn, what before had been very uncomfort- 
able became a serious hardship. Drenched through 

and through by the spray of the sea at night, I have 

* 

sometimes slept standing on the spar-deck — and shud- 
dered as I slept — for the want of sufficient sleep in my 
liammock. 

During three days of the stormiest weather, we were 
given the privilege of the berth-deck (at other times 
strictly interdicted), where we were permitted to spread 

g3 



IdO WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

our jaoketB^ and take a nap in the morning after tluei 
^ght hours' night exposure. But this privilege w^b 
but a beggarly one, indeed. Not to iqpeak of our 
jackets — ^^used for blankets — being soaking wet^ the 
spray, coming down the hatchways, kept the planks of 
the berth-deck itself constantly wet j whereas, had we 
been permitted our hammocks, we might have swung 
dry oyer all this deluge. But we endeavoured to make 
ourselves as warm and comfortable as possible, chiefly 
by close stowing, so as to generate a little steam, in the 
absence of anj fi««ide warmth. Yon have seen, per- 
haps, the wiry in which they box up subjects intended 
to illustrate the winter lectures of a professor of surgery. 
Just so we laid; heel and point, &co to back, dove- 
tailed into each other at every ham and knee. The 
wet of pur jackets, thus densely packed, would soon 
begin to distil. But it was like pouring hot watar on 
you to keep you from J&eezing. It was like being 
'^ packed'^ between the soaked sheets in a Wsi;^-cure 
JBstablishment. 

iSuoh a posture could not be preserved tar any epn^ 
8idera})le p^od without shifting side for aide. Three 
or four times during the four hours I would be stiartled 
from a wet doze by the hoarse ay of a fdlow who did 
the duty of a corporal at the after-end of my filej 
^' Sleepers ahoy I Hand by to slew round!" and^ witii a 
double shuffle, we all rolled in concert, and found our- 
selves fiicing the taffarail instead of the bowsprit. But, 



THE WGfBLD IN A liAN-OF-WAE. 131 

however you turned, your nose was sore to stick to one 
or other of the steanung backs on your two flanks. 
There was some little rehrf in the change of odour 
consequent upon this. 

But what is the reason that, after battling out eight 
stormy hours on deck at night, man-of*war's-men are 
not allowed the poor boon of a dry four hours' nap 
during the day following ? What is the reason ? The 
Commodore, Captain, and I^rst Lieutenant, Chaplain, 
Purser, and scores of others, have all night in, just as 
if they were staying at an hotel on shore. And the 
junior Lieutenants not only have their cots to go to 
at any time ; but as only one of them is required to 
head the watch, and there are so many <^ them among 
whom to divide that duty, they are only on deck four 
hours to twelve hours below. In some cases the pro* 
portion is still greater. Whereas, with '' the people,'* 
it is four hours in and four hours off continually. 

What is the reason, then, that the common seamen 
should fare so hard in this matter? It would seem 
but a simple thing to let them get down their ham- 
mocks during the day for a nap. But no; such a pro- 
ceeding would mar the uniformity of daily events in 
a man-of-war. It seems indispensable to the picturesque 
^ect of the spar-deck, that the hammocks should in- 
variably remain stowed in the nettings between sunrise 
and sundown. But the chief reason is this — a reason 
which has sanctioned many an abuse in this world — 



182 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

precedents are against it : such a thing as sailors sleep- 
ing in their hammocks in the daytime, after being 
eight hours exposed to a night-storm, is not a regular 
thing in the Navy. Though, to the immortal honoui^ 
of some captains be it said, the fact is upon navy 
record that, off Cape Horn, they have Touchsafed the 
morning hammocks to their crew. Heaven bless such 
tender-hearted officers; and may they and their de- 
scendants — ashore or afloat — ^have sweet and pleasant 
slumbers whUe they live, and an undreaming siesta 
when they die. 

It is concerning such things as the subject of this 
chapter that special enactments of Congress are 
demanded. Health and comfort — so £ax as duly 
attainable under the circumstances — should be legally 
guaranteed to the man-of-war^s-man ; and not left to 
the discretion or caprice of his commander. 



/ 



THli; WOBXD m A MAN-07-WAB. 133 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WASH-DAT, AND HOUSB-CLXANINa IN A HAN-OF-WAB. 

Besides the other tribulations connected with your 
hanmiock^ you must keep it snow-white and clean. 
Who has not observed the long rows of spotless ham- 
mocks exposed in a fiigate^s nettings^ where^ through 
the day^ their outsides at least are kept airing? 

Hence it comes that there are regular mornings 
appointed for the scrubbing of hammocks; and such 
mornings are called scrub-hammock-momings, and 
desperate is the scrubbing that ensues. 

Before daylight the operation begins. All hands are 
called^ and at it they go. Every deck is spread with 
hammocks, fore and aft ; and lucky are you, if you can 
get sufficient surface to spread your own hammock on. 
Down on their knees are five hundred men, scrubbing 
away with brushes and brooms; jostling, and crowding, 
and quarrelling about using each other^s suds; when 
all their Purser's soap goes to create one indiscriminate 
yeast. 

Sometimes you discover that, in the dark, you have 
been all the while scrubbing your next neighbour's 
hammock instead of your own. But it is too late to 



184i WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

begin over again ; for now the word is passed for every 
man to advance with his hammock, that it may be tied 
to a net-like frame-work of clothes-lines, and hoisted 
aloft to dry. 

That done, without delay you get together your 
frocks and trowsers, and on the already flooded deck 
embark in the laundry business. You have no special 
bucket or basin to yourself — the ship being one vast 
wash-tub, where all hands wash and rinse out, and 
xinse out and wash, till at last the word is passed agaii^ 
to make fast your clothes, that they, also, may be 
elevated to dry. 

Then on all three decks the operation of holy-stoning 
begins, so called from the queer name bestowed upon 
the principal instruments employed. These are pon- 
derous flat stones with long ropes at each end, by 
which the stones are slidden about, to and fro, over the 
wet and sanded decks; a most wearisome, dog-like,, 
galley-slave employment. F(»* the by-ways and comers 
about the masts and guns, smaller stones are used^ 
called prayeT'-booh ; inasmuch as the devout operator 
has to down with them on his knees. 

Finally, a grand flooding takes place, and the decks 
fure remorselessly thrashed with dry swabs. After 
which an extraordinary implement — a sort of leathern 
hoe called a '^squUget^^ — is used to scrape and squeeze 
the last dhbblings of water from the planks. Concern- 
ing this '^ squilgee,^^ I think something of drawing up 



THE TSrOBU) IN A MAN-OT-WAS.. 135 

a memcix, and reading it before the Academy of Arts 
and Sdenoes. It is a most omions affiur. 

By the time all these operations are cooaclnded it is 
eight belts, and all hands are piped to breakfast upon 
the damp and eyery-way disagreeable decks. 

Now^ against this invariable daily flooding of the 
three decks of a frigate, as a man-of-war's-many White* 
Jacket most earnestly protests. In sunless ireather it 
keeps the sailor's quarters perpetually damp ; so much 
90, that you can scarce sit down without running the 
risk of getting the lumbago. One rheumatic old sheet- 
anchor^man among us was driyen to the extremity of 
sewing a piece of tarred canyass on the seat of his 
trowsers. 

Let those neat and tidy officers who so love to see 
a ship kept a^ck and span clean ; who institute vigorous 
search after the man who chances to drop the crumb 
of a biscuit on deck, when the ship is rolling in a sea- 
way; let all such swing their hammocks with the 
aailors^ and they would soon get sick of this daily damp- 
ing of the decks. 

Is a ship a wooden platter, that it is to be scrubbed 
out every morning before breakfast, even if the thermo- 
meter be at sero, and every sailor goes barefooted 
through the flood with the chilblains? And all the 
while the ship carries a doctor^ well aware of Boer- 
haave's great maxim, ^' Keq) the feet dry,^^ He has 
j^lenty of pills to give you when you are down with 



136 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

a fever, the consequences of these things ; but enters 
no protest at the outset — as it is his duty to do — against 
the cause that induces the fever. 

During the pleasant night-watches, the promenading 
officers, mounted on their high-heeled boots, pass dry^ 
shod, like the Israehtes, over the decks ; but by day* 
break the roaring tide sets back, and the poor sailors 
are ahnost overwhelmed in it, like the Egyptians in the 
Bed Sea. 

Oh I the chills, colds, and agues that are caught I 
No snug stove, grate, or fire-place to go to ; no, your 
only way to keep warm is to keep in a blazing passion> 
and anathematize the custom that every morning makes 
a wash-house of a man-of-war. 

Look at it. Say you go on board a line-of-batiie* 
ship : you see everything scrupulously neat ; you see 
all the decks clear and imbbstructed as the side-walks 
of Wall Street of a Sunday morning; you see no trace 
of a sailor's dormitory ; you marvel by what magic all 
this is brought about. And well you may. For con- 
sider, that in this unobstructed fabric nearly one thou- 
sand mortal men have to sleep, eat, wash, dress, cook, 
and perform all the ordinary functions of humanity. 
The same number of men ashore would expand them* 
selves into a township. Is it credible, then, that this 
extraordinary neatness, and especially this unobstmct^ 
edness of a man-of-war, can be brought about, except 
by the most rigorous edicts, and a very serious sacrifice. 



THE WOBID m A HAN-OF-WAB. 137 

with respect to the sailors, of the domestic comforts of 
life ? To be sure^ sailors themselves do not often com- 
pkin of these things ; they are used to them ; but man 
can become nsed even to the hardest usage. And it is 
because he is used to it^ that sometimes he does not 
complain of it. 

Of all men-of-war^ the American ships are the most 
excessively neat^ and have the greatest reputation for it. 
And of all men-of-war the general discipline of the 
American ships is perhaps the most severe. 

In the English Navy, the men liberally mess on tables, 
which, between meals, are triced up out of the way. 
The American sailors mess on the deck, and peck up 
their broken biscuit, or midshipmen's nuts, like fowls in 
a barn-yard. 

But if this unobstructedness in an American fighting- 
ship be, at all hazards, so desirable, why not imitate the 
Turks ? In the Turkish Navy they have no mess-chests ; 
the sailors roU their mess things up in a rug, and thrust 
them under a gun. Nor do they have any hammocks ; 
they sleep anywhere about the decks in their gregoes. 
Indeed, come to look at it, what more does a man-of- 
war's-man absolutely require to live in than his own 
skin ? That^s room enough ; and room enough to turn 
in, if he but knew how to shift his spine, end for end, 
like a ramrod, without disturbing his next neighbour. 

Among all man-of-war's-men, it is a maxim that 
over-neat vessels are Tartars to the crew ; and perhaps 



136 WHTTE^ACKET; OR, 

it may be safely laid down that^ when you see such 
a sliip^ some sort of tyranny is not very far off. 

In the Neversink^ as in other national ships^ the 
business of holy^stoning the decks was often prolonged^ 
by way of punishment to the men, particularly of a raw, 
cold morning. This is one of the punishments which 
a Lieutenant of the Watch may easily inflict upon the 
crew, without infringing the statute which places the 
power 4)f punishment solely in the hands of the 
Captain. 

The abhorrence which man-of-war's-men have for 
this protracted holystoning in cold, comfortless weather 
— with their bare feet exposed to the splashing iaunda- 
tions--is shown in a strange story, rife among them, 
curiously tinctured with their proverbial superstitions. 

The First Lieutenant of an English sloop of war, 
a severe disciplinarian, was uncommonly particular con*- 
ceming the whiteness of the quarter-deck. One bitter 
winter morning at sea, when the crew had washed that 
part of the vessel, as usual, and put away their holy- 
stones, this officer came on deck, and after inspecting 
it, ordered the holystones and prayer-books up again. 
Once more slipping off the shoes from their frosted feet, 
and rolling up their trowsers, the crew kneeled down to 
their task ; and in that suppliant posture, silently invoked 
a curse upon their tyrant; praying, as he went below, 
that he might never more come out of the ward-room 
alive. The prayer seemed answered ; for being shortly 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 189 

after visited with a paralytic stroke at his breakfast- 
table^ the First Lieutenant next morning was carried 
out of the ward-room feet foremost^ dead. As they 
dropped him over the side — so goes the story — ^the 
marine sentry at the gangway turned his back upon the 
corpse. 

To the credit cf the humane and sensible portion of 
the roll of American navy-captains, be it added, that 
they are not so particular in keeping the decks spotless 
at all timfiB, and in all weathers ; nor do they torment 
the men with scraping bright-wood and polishing ring- 
bolts; but give all such gingerbread-work a hearty coat 
<^ black paint, which looks more warlike, is a better 
preservative, and exempts the sailors from a perpetual 
annoyance. 



140 WHTCE-JACEET ; OB, 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THKATBI0AL8 IK ▲ VAK-OF-WAK. 

The Neversink had summered out her last Christmas 
on the Equator ; she was now destined to winter out 
the Fourth of July not very fer from the frigid latitudes 
of Cape Horn. 

It is sometimes the custom in the American Naivy 
to celebrate this national holiday by doubling tb& 
allowance of spirits to the men; that is^ if the ship 
happen to be lying in harbour. The effects of Urn 
patriotic plan may be easily imagined : the whole ship: 
is converted into a dram-shop; and the intoxicufted: 
sailors reel about^ on all three decks^ singings howling^ 
and fighting. This is the time that^ owing to the 
related discipline of the ship^ old and almost forgotten 
quarrels are revived^ under the stimulus of drink; and^ 
fencing themselves up between the guns — so as to b6 
sure of a clear space with at least three walls — the com- 
batants^ two and two^ fight out their hate^ cribbed and 
cabined like soldiers duelling in a sentry-box. In 
a word^ scenes ensue which would not for a single: 
instant be tolerated by the officers upon any other 
occasion. This is the time that the most venerable of 
quarter-gunners and quarter-masters^ together with the. 
smallest apprentice boys^ and men never known to have 
been previously intoxicated during the cruise — this is. 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-Or-WAE. 141 

the time that thej all roll together in the same muddy 
trough of drunkemiess. 

In emulation of the potentates of the Middle Ages, 
some Captains augment the din by authorizing a grand 
gaol-delivery of all the prisoners who, on that auspicious 
iVmrth of the month, may happen to be confined in the 
sfaip^s prison — " the brigJ^ 

But from scenes like these the Neversink was happily 
delivered. Besides that she was now approaching 
a most perilous part of the ocean — ^which would have 
made it madness to intoxicate the sailors — ^her complete 
destitution of grog, even for ordinary consumption, was 
an obstacle altogether insuperable, even had the Captain 
felt disposed to indulge his man-of-war's-men by the 
most copious libations. 

For several days previous to the advent of the hoUday, 
firequent conferences were held on the gun-deck 
touching the melancholy prospects before the ship. 

*'Too bad — ^too bad V^ cried a top-man. "Think of 
it, shipmates — a Fourth of July without grog V^ 

^m hoist the Commodore's pennant at half-mast 
that day,'' sighed the Signal-quarter-master. 

" And 111 turn my best uniform jacket wrong side 
CfoH, to keep company with the pennant, old Ensign," 
sympathetically responded an Afber-guard's-man. 

"Ay, do !" cried a Forecastle-man. "I could almost 
pipe my eye to think on't." 

"No grog on de day dat tried men's souls!" blub- 
bered Sunshine, the galley-cook. 



' 



14s2 WHITE- JA.CK1BT; OB, 

"Who would be a Jankee (Yankee) now?'' roared 
a Hollander of the fore-top, more Dutch than sour- 
crout. 

"Is this the riglar firuits of liberty?'' touchingly 
inquired an Irish waister of an old Spanish sheet- 
anchor-man* 

You will generally observe that, of all Americans, 
your foreign-bom citiz^is are the most patriotic — 
especially toward the Fourth of July. 

But how could Captain Claret, the father of his crew^ 
behold the grief of his ocean children with indifference? 
He could not. Three days before the anniversary — ^it still 
continuing very pleasant weather for these latitudes — ^it 
was publicly announced that free permission was given 
to the sailors to get up any sort of theatricals they 
desired, wherewith to honour the Fourth. 

Now, some weeks prior to the Neversink's sailing 
from home — ^nearly three years before the time here 
spoken of — some of the seamen had clubbed t(^etber, 
and made up a considerable purse, for the purpose of 
purchasing a theatrical outfit ; having in view to diversify 
the monotony of lying in foreign harbours for weeks 
together, by an occasional display (m the boards — 
though if ever there was a continual theatre in the. 
world, playing by night and by day, and without inter- 
vals between the acts, a man-of-war is that theatre, and 
her planks are the boards indeed. 

The sailors who originated this scheme had served in 
other American frigates, where the privilege of having 



THE WOBLD Hf A MAN-OF-WAR. 143 

theatricals was allowed to tbe crew. What was their 
chagrin^ then^ when^ upon making an application to the 
Captain^ in a Peruvian harbour^ for permission to pre- 
sent the much-admired drama of " The Ruffian Bot/y* 
under the Captain's personal patronage^ that digmtary 
assured them that there were already enough ruffian 
boys on boards without conjuring up any more from 
the green-room. 

The theatrical outfit, therefore, was stowed down in 
the bottom of the sailors' bags, who little anticipated 
then that it would ever be dragged out while Captain 
Claret had the sway. 

But immediately upon the annoimcement that the 
embargo was removed, vigorous preparations were at 
once commenced to celebrate the Fourth with unwonted 
spirit. The half-deck was set apart for the theatre, 
and the Signal-quarter-master was commanded to loan 
his flags to decorate it in the most patriotic style. 

As the stage-struck portion of the crew had fre- 
quently during the cruise rehearsed portions of various 
plays, to whUe away the tedium of the night-watches, 
they needed no long time now to perfect themselves in 
their parts. 

Accordingly, on the very next morning after the in- 
dulgence had been granted by the Captain, the follow- 
ing written placard, presenting a broadside of staring 
capitals, was found tacked against the main-mast on 
the gun-deck. It was as if a Drury-Lane bill had been 
posted upon the London Monument. 



■ ■^ 



^F^ 



144 

CJkVS BO&H TBEJa^TaS. 

Grand Celebration of the Fourth of July. 
DAY PERFORMANCE. . 

UNCOMMON ATTRACTION. 

TBS oziD vrjkaoTt viLin otti 

JACK CHASE PEECY ROYAL-MAST. 

STARS OP THE FIRST MAGNITUDE. 

For this time only, 

TBB TliVa TAWBLSB SAX&Oli. 

The managers of the Cape Horn Theatre beg leave to 

inform the inhabitants of the Pacific and Sonthem 

Oceans that^ on the afternoon of the Fourth of Zvlj, 

184-, they will have the honour to present the admired 

drama of 

TBS OZiD VriLaOTt VATD OFF X 

Commodore Bougee Tom Brovm of the FoTt4(w, 

Captain Spy-glass Ned Brace, of ike Afier-Ouard, 

Commodore's Cockswain .... Joe Bunk ofihe Launch. 

Old Luff Quarter-maater Coffin, 

Mayor 8eaffdl,qf the Forecastle. 

Pebot Royal-Mast Jack Chase. 

Mrs. Lovelorn Long4ock8, qfthe After-Quard, 

Toddy Moll Fraaik Jones, 

Oin and Sugar Sail Dick Dash 

Sailors^ Marines^ Bar-keepers^ Crimps^ Aldermen, Police- 
officers, Soldiers, Landsmen generally. 

Long live the Commodore ! || Admission Free. 

To conclude with the much-admired song by Dibdin, 
altered to suit all American Tars, entitled 

TBB TBVB:TABBBB SAZl^OB. 

True Yankee Sailor (in costume), Patrick Flinegan, 

Captain of the Head. 
Performance to commence with '^ Hail Columbia,'* by 
the Brass Band. Ensign rises at three bells, F.M. No 
sailor permitted to enter in his shirt-sleeves. Good 
order is expected to be maintained. The Master-at- 
arms and Ship's Corporals to be in attendance to keep 
the peace. 



^ 



I«i 



^ 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 145 

At the earnest entreaties of the seamen^ Lemsford^ 
the gun-deck poet, had been prevailed upon to draw up 
this bUl. And upon this one occasion his literary abili^ 
ties were far from being underrated, even by the least 
intellectual person on board. Nor must it be omitted 
that, before the biU was placarded, Captain Claret, 
enacting the part of Censor and Grand Chamberlain, 
pan over a manuscript copy of " The Old Wagon Paid 
Off," to see whether it contained anything calculated 
to breed disaffection against lawful authority among the 
crew. He objected to some parts, but in the end let 
them all pass. 

The morning of The Fourth — ^most anxiously awaited 
— dawned clear and fair. The breeze was steady; the 
air bracing cold ; and one and all the sailors anticipated 
a gleeful afternoon. And thus was falsified the pro- 
phecies of certain old growlers averse to theatricals, 
who had predicted a gale of wind that would quash all 
the arrangements of the green-room. 

As the men whose jugular turns, at the time of the 
parformance, would come roimd to be stationed in the 
tops, and at the various halyards and running ropes 
about the spar-deck, could not be permitted to partake 
in the celebration, there accordingly ensued, during the 
lApming, many amusing scenes of tars who were anxi- 
ous to procure substitutes at their posts. Through the 
dajr, many amdous glances were cast to windward ; but 
the weather still promised fair. 

VOL. I. H 



146 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

At last '' the people " were piped to dinner ; two bells 
struck ; and soon after^ all who could be spared from 
their stations hurried to the half-deck. The capstan 
bars were placed on shot-boxes^ as at prayers on Sim- 
days^ furnishing seats for the audience; while a low 
stage, rigged by the carpenter's gang, was built at one 
end of the open space. The curtain was composed of 
a large ensign, and the bulwarks round about were 
draperied with the flags of all nations. The ten or 
twelve members of the brass band were ranged in a cow 
at the foot of the stage, their polished instruments in 
their hands, while the consequential Captain of the 
Band himself was elevated upon a gun-carriage. 

At three beUs precisely a group of ward-room officers 
emerged from the after hatchway, and seated them* 
pelves upon camp-stools, in a central position, with the 
stars and stripes for a canopy. That was the royal 
box. The sailors looked round for the Commodore ; 
but neither Commodore nor Captain honoured "the 
people '^ with their presence. 

At the call of a bugle the band struck up Hail 
Columbia^ the whole audience keeping time, as at Druiy 
Lane, when God save the King is played after a great 
national victory. 

At the discharge of a marine's musket the curtain 
rose, and four sailors, in the picturesque garb of 
Maltese mariners, staggered on the stage in a feigned 
state of intoxication. The truthfulness of the repre- 



THE WOMJ) IN A MAN-OP-WAE. I47 

sentation was much heightened by the roll of the 
ship. 

" The Commodore," " Old Luff," « The Mayor/' and 
" Gm and Sugar SaU," were played to admiration, and 
i*ceived great appkuse. But at the first appearance of 
that, universal favourite. Jack Chase, in the chivalric 
character of "Percy Ropal-Mast," the whole audience 
sunultaneously rose to their feet, and greeted him with 
three hearty cheers, that almost took the main-top-sail 
aback. 

Matchless Jack, in fiiUfig, bowed again and again, 
with true quarter-deck grace and self-possession ; and 
when five or six untwisted strands of rope and bunches 
oS oakum were thrown to him, as substitutes for 
bouquets, he took them one by one, and gallantly hung 
them from the buttons of his jacket. 

" Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah !— go on ! go on !— stop 
hollering— hunrah!— goon !— stop hoUering— hurrah !" 
was now heard on all sides, till at last, seeing no end 
to the enthusiasm of his ardent admirers. Matchless 
Jack stepped forward, and, with his lips moving in 
pantomime, plunged into the thick of the part. Silence 
soon followed, but was fifty times broken by uncon- 
trollable bursts of applause. At length, when that 
heart-thrilling scene came on, where Percy Royal- Mast 
rescues fifteen oppressed sailors from the watch-house, 
in the teeth of a posse of constables, the audience 
leaped to their feet, overturned the capstan bars, and 

h2 



148 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

to a man hurled their hats on the stage in a deli- 
rium of delight. Ah^ Jack^ that was a ten-stroke 
indeed ! 

The commotion was now terrific ; all discipUne seemed 
gone for ever; the Lieutenants ran in among the men 
the Captain darted from his cabin^ and the Commodore 
nervously questioned the armed sentry at his door as 
to what the deuce ^Hhe people'^ were about. In the 
midst of all this, the trumpet of the Officer-of-the-deck, 
commanding the top-gallant sails to be taken in, was 
almost completely drowned. A black squall was coming 
down on the weather-bow, and the boatswain's mates 
bellowed themselves hoarse at the main-hatchway. 
There is no knowing what would have ensued, had not 
the bass drum suddenly been heard, calling all hands 
to quarters, a summons not to be withstood. The 
sailors pricked their ears at it, as horses at the sound 
of a cracking whip, and confusedly stumbled up the 
ladders to their stations. The next moment all was 
silent but the wind, howling like a thousand devils 
in the cordage. 

'^ Stand by to reef all three top-sails 1 — settle away 
the halyards ! — ^haul out — so : make fast ! — aloft, top- 
men ! and reef away !" 

Thus, in storm and tempest terminated that day's 
theatricals. But the sailors never recovered from the 
disappointment of not having the "Thie Yankee Sailor*^ 
sung by the Irish Captain of the Head. 



i.Mi ^ M'^y^i^fT'^^^^s^namf^ 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 149 

And here White-Jacket must moralize a bit. The 
unwouted spectacle of the row of gun-room officers 
mingling with "the people^' in applauding a mere 
seaman like Jack Chase^ filled me at the time with 
the most pleasurable emotions. It is a sweet thing, 
thought I^ to see these officers confess a human 
brotherhood with us, after all ; a sweet thing to mark 
their cordial appreciation of the manly merits of my 
matchless Jack. Ah ! they are noble fellows all round, 
and I do not know but I have wronged them sometimes 
in my thoughts. 

Nor was it without similar pleasurable feelings that 
I witnessed the temporary rupture of the ship^s stem 
discipline, consequent upon the tumult of the theatri- 
cals. I thought to myself, this now is as it should be. 
It is good to shake oflF, now and then, this iron yoke 
round our necks. And after having once permitted us 
sailors to be a little noisy, in a harmless way — some- 
what merrily turbulent — ^the officers cannot, with any 
good grace, be so excessively stern and unyielding as 
before. I began to think a man-of-war a man-of- 
peace-and-good-will, after all. But, alas ! disappoint- 
ment came. 

Next morning the same old scene was enacted at the 
gangway. And beholding the row of uncompromising- 
looking officers there assembled with the Captain, to 
witness punishment — ^the same officers who had been 
so cheerfully disposed over night — an old sailor touched 



■^^^ 



150 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

mj shoulder^ and said^ " See, White* Jacket^ all round 
they have shipped their quarter-^ck faces agam. But 
this is the way/' 

I afterwards learned that this was an old man-oi^ 
war's-man's phrase^ expressive of the facility with which 
a sea-officer falls back upon all the severity of his 
dignity^ after a temporary suspension of it. 



THE WOKLD IN A ICAN-OI'-WAB,. 151 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

IlTTBODnOTOBT TO CAPB H B K. 

And now^ througli drizzling fogs and vapours, and 
under damp, double-reefed top-sails, our wet-decked 
frigate drew nearer and nearer to the squally Cape. 

Who has not heard of it ? Cape Horn, Cape Horn 
— a horn indeed, that has tossed many a good ship. 
Was the descent of Orpheus, Ulysses, or Dante into 
Hell, one whit more hardy and sublime than the first 
navigator's weathering of that terrible Cape ? 

Turned on her heel by a fierce West Wind, many an 
outward-bound ship has been driven across the Southern 
Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope — that yi^raj to seek 
a passage to the Pacific. And that stormy Cape, I doubt 
not, has sent many a fine craft to the bottom, and told 
no tales. At those ends of the earth are no chronicles. 
What signify the broken spars and shrouds that, day 
after day, are driven before the prows of more fortunate 
vessels ? or the tall masts, imbedded in icebergs, that 
are found floating by ? They but hint the old story — 
of ships that have sailed from their ports, and never 
more have been heard of. 

Impracticable Cape ! You may approach it from this 
direction or that — ^in any way you please — ^from the east, 
or from the west ; with the wind astern, or abeam, or on 



152 WHTEB- JACKET; OE, 

the quarter ; and still Cape Horn is Cape Horn. Cape 
Horn it is that takes the conceit out of fresh-water 
sailors^ and steeps in a still Salter brine the saltest. 
Woe betide the tyro ! the fool-hardy, Heaven preserve ! 
Your Mediterranean captain, who with a cargo of 
oranges has hitherto made merry runs across the At- 
lantic, without so much as furling a t'-gallant-sail, 
oftentimes, off Cape Horn, receives a lesson which he 
carries to the grave ; though the grave — as is too oft^i 
the case — ^follows so hard on the lesson that no benefit 
comes from the experience. 

Other strangers who draw nigh to this Patagonia 
termination of our continent, with their souls fuU of it& 
shipwrecks and disasters — top-sails cautiously reefed, 
and everything guardedly snug — these strangers at first 
unexpectedly encountering a tolerably smooth sea, rashly 
conclude that the Cape, after all, is but a bugbear; they 
have been imposed upon by fables, and founderings and 
sinkings hereabouts are all cock-and-bull stories. 

'^ Out reefs, my hearties ; fore and aft set V-gallant* 
sails! stand by to give her the fore-top-mast stun'- 
sail!'' 

But, Captain Bash^ those sails of yours were much 
safer in the sail-maker's loft. For now, while the 
heedless craft is bounding over the billows, a black 
cloud rises out? of the sea ; the sun drops down from 
the sky ; a horrible mist far and wide spreads over the 
water. 



^ 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WaE. 153 

'* Hands by the halyards ! Let go ! Clew up V 

Too late. 

For ere the ropes^ ends can be cast off from the pins, 
the tornado is blowing down to the bottom of their 
throats. The masts are willows, the sails ribbons, the 
cordage wool ; the whole ship is brewed into the yeast 
of the gale. 

• And now, if, when the first green sea breaks over 
him, Captain Rash is not swept overboard, he has his 
hands ftdl, be sure. In all probability his three masts 
have gone by the board ; and, ravelled into list, his 
sails are floating in the air. Or, perhaps, the ship 
broaches to, or is brought by the lee. In either case, 
Heaven help the sailors, their wives, and their little 
ones ; and Heaven help the underwriters. 

Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, 
but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the 
oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circimispectly. 
A veteran mariner is never deceived by the treacherous 
breezes -which sometimes waft him pleasantly toward 
the latitude of the Cape. No sooner does he come 
within a certain distance of it — previously fixed in his 
own mind — ^than all hands are turned to setting the 
ship in storm-trim; and, never mind how Kght the 
breeze, down come his t'-gallant-yards. He " bends^^ 
his strongest storm-sails, and lashes every thing on 
deck securely. The ship is then ready for the worst ; 
and if, in reeling round the headland, she receiver 

h3 






154 WHITE- JACKET ; OK, 

a broadside, it generally goes well with her. If ill, all 
hands go to the bottom with qniet consciences. 

Among sea-captains, there are some who seem to 
regard the genius of the Cape as a wilfiil, capricioiM 
jade, that must be courted and coaxed into complaisance. 
First, they come along under easy sail ; do not steer 
boldly for the headland, but tack this way and that- 
sidling up to it. Now they woo the Jezebel with a 
t' -gallant-studding-sail; anon, they deprecate her wrath 
with double-^reefed-top-sails. When, at length, her 
unappeasable fury is fairly aroused, and all round tte 
dismantled ship the storm howls and howls for dayB 
together, they still persevere in their efforts. First, 
they try unconditional submission ; fiurling every rag 
and heaving to ; laying like a log, tor the tempest to 
toss wheresoever it pleases. 

This failing, they set a q^encer or try-sail, and shift 
on the other tack. Equally rain ! The gale sings as 
hoarsely as before. At last, the wind comes round 
fair; they drop the fore-saQ; square the yards, and 
scud before it : their implacable foe chasing them witii 
tornadoes, as if to show her insensibility to the last. 

Other ships, without encountering these terrible 
gales, spend week after week endeavouring to turn this 
boisterous world-comer against a continual head-wioed. 
Tacking hither and tliither, in the language of sailors, 
they polish the Cape by beating about its edges so long. 

Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-Or-WAR. 155 

navigators who weathered Cape Horn. Previous to 
this^ passages had been made to the Pacific by the 
Straits of Magellan ; nor^ indeed^ at that period^ was it 
known to a certainty that there was any other ronte^ or 
that the land now called T^ra del Fuego was an island. 
A few leagues southward from Terra del Fuego is 
a cluster of small islands^ the Didoes ; between which 
and the former island are the Straits of Le Mair^ so 
called in honour of their disooverer^ who first sailed 
through them into the Padfie. Le Mair and Schouten^ 
in their small^ clumsy vessels^ encotmtered a series of 
tremendous gales, the prelude to the long train of 
similar hardships which most of their followers have 
eiqperienced. It is a significant fact, that Schouten^s 
vessel, the HGme, which gave its name to the Cape, was 
almost lost in weathering it. 

The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis 
Drake, who, on Raleigh's Expedition, beholding for the 
first time, from the Isthmus of Darien, the '^ goodlie 
South Sea,'' like a true-bom Englishman vowed, 
please God, to sail an English ship thereon ; which the 
gallant saUor did, to the sore discomfiture of the 
Spaniards on the coasts of Chili and Peru. 

But perhaps the greatest hardships on record, in 
making this celebrated passage, were those experienced 
by Lord Anson's squadron in 1736. Three remarkable 
and most interestiug narratives record their disasters 
and sufferings. The first, jointly written by the 



156 WHTTB- JACKET ; OE, 

carpenter and gunner of the Wager; the second^ by 
young Byron^ a midshipman in the same ship; the 
thirds by the chaplain of the Centurion^ White- Jacket 
has them all ; and they are fine reading of a boisterous 
March nighty with the casement rattling in your ear^. 
and the chinmey-stacks blowing down upon the pave- 
ment, bubbling with rain-drops. 

But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my 
friend Dana's unmatchable "Two Years before the 
Mast/' But you can read, and so you must have read 
it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been 
written with an icicle. 

At the present day the horrors of the Cape have 
somewhat abated* This is owing to a growing fami- 
liarity with it; but, more than all, to the improved 
condition of ships in aU respects, and the means now 
generaUy in use of preserving the health of the crews 
in times of severe and prolonged exposure. 



THE WOBIJ) IN A HAN-OF-WAB. 157 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THB DOO-DATS OFF GAPS HORN. 



COLDEK and colder; we are drawing nigh to the 
Cape. Now gregoes, pea jackets, monkey jackets, 
reefing jackets, storm jackets, oil jackets, paint jackets, 
round jackets, short jackets, long jackets, and all man- 
ner of jackets, are the order of the day, not excepting 
the immortal white jacket, which begins to be sturdily 
buttoned up to the throat, and pulled down vigorously 
at the skirts, to bring them well over the loins. 

But, alas ! those skirts were lamentably scanty ; and 
though, with its quiltings, the jacket was stuffed out 
about the breasts like a Christmas turkey, and of a dry 
cold day kept the wearer warm enough in that vicinity, 
yet about the loins it was shorter than a ballet-dancer^s 
skirts ; so that while my chest was in the temperate 
zone, close adjoining the torrid, my hapless thighs 
were in Nova Zembla, hardly an icicle's toss from the 
Pole. 

Then, again, the repeated soakings and dryings it had 
undergone had by this time made it shrink woefully 
all over, especially in the arms, so that the wristbands 
had gradually crawled up near to the elbows ; and it 



158 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

required an energetic thrust to push the arm through^ 
in drawing the jacket on. 

I endeavoured to amend these misfortunes by sewing 
a sort of canvass ruffle round the skirts, by way of 
a continuation or supplement to the original work, and 
by doing the same with the wristbands. 

This is the time for oil-skin suits, dreadnoughts, 
tarred trowsers and overalls, sea-boots, comforters^ 
mittens, woollen socks, Guernsey firocks, Havre shirts^ 
buffalo-robe shirts, and moose-skin drawers. Every 
man^s jacket is his wigwam, and every man's hat hia 
caboose. 

Perfect licence is now permitted to the men respect- 
ing their clothing. Whatever they can rake and scrape 
together they put on — swaddling themselves in old sails^ 
and drawing old socks over their heads for night-caps. 
This is the time for smiting your chest with your hand^ 
and talking loud to keep up the circulation. 

Colder, and colder, and colder, till at last we spoke 
a fleet of icebergs bound North. After that, it was one 
incessant " cold snap" that almost snapped off our 
fingers and toes. Cold I It was cold as Blue Fitffin, 
where sailors say fire freezes. 

And now coming up with the latitude of the Cape, 
we stood seuthward to give it a wide berth, and while 
so doing were becalmed; ay, becalmed off Cape H(»ii, 
which is worse, far worse, than being becalmed on the 
Line. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAIU 159 

Here we lay forty-eight hours, during which the cold 
was intense. I wondered at the liquid sea, which 
vefosed to freeze in such a temperature. The clear, 
cold sky overhead looked like a steel-blue cjrmbal, that 
might ring, could yon smite it. Our breath came and 
went like puffs of smoke from pipe-bowls. At first 
tiiere was a long, gawky swell, that obliged us to fiirl 
most of the sails, and even send down t^-gaUant-yards, 
for fear of pitching them overboard. 

Out of sight of land, at this extremity of both the 
inhabitable and uninhabitable world, our peopled frigate, 
echoing with the voices of men, the bleating of lambs, 
liie cadding of fowls, the gruntings of pigs, seemed 
Hke Noah's old ark itself, becalmed at the climax of the 
Deluge. 

Here was nothing to be done but patiently to await 
the pleasure of the elements, and " whistle for a wind," 
the usual practice of seamen in a cahn. No fire was 
allowed, except for the indispensable purpose of cook- 
ing, and heating bottles of water to toast Selvagee's 
feet. He who possessed the largest stock of vitality, 
stood the best chance to escape freezhig. It was hor- 
rifying. In such weather any man could have under- 
gone amputation with great ease, and helped take up 
the arteries himself. 

Indeed, this state of affeiirs had not lasted quite 
twenty-four hours, when the extreme frigidity of the 
air, united to our increased tendency to inactivity, 



160 WHITE-JACKET ; OE, 

would very soon have rendered some of us subjects for 
the surgeon and his mates, had not a humane pro- 
ceeding of the Captain suddenly impelled us to vigorous 
exercise. 

And here be it said, that the appearance of the Boat- 
swain, with his silver whistle to his mouth, at the main 
hatchway of the gun-deck, is always regarded by the 
crew with the utmost curiosity, for this betokens that 
some general order is about to be promulgated through 
the ship. What now? is the question that runs on 
from man to man. A short preliminary whistle is then 
given by " Old Yam,^' as they call him, which whistle 
serves to collect round him, from tl^eir various stations, 
his four mates. Then Yam, or Pipes, as leader of the 
orchestra, begins a peculiar call, in which his assistants 
join. This over, the order, whatever it may be, is loudly 
sung out and prolonged, till the remotest comer echoes 
again. The Boatswain and his mates are the town- 
criers of a man-of-war. 

The calm had commenced in the afternoon ; and the 
following morning the ship's company were electrified 
by a general order, thus set forth and declared : " If ye 
hear there, fore and aft I all hands skylark I" 

This mandate, nowadays never used except upon very 
rare occasions, produced the same effect upon the men 
that Exhilarating Gas would have done, or an extra 
allowance of "grog.'' For a time, the wonted disci- 
pline of the ship was broken through, and perfect 



THE WORLD IN A HAN-OI'-WAR. 161 

license allowed. It was a Babel here^ a Bedlam tfaere^ 
and a Pandemonium everywhere. The Theatricals were 
nothing compared with it. Then the faint-hearted and 
timorous crawled to their hiding-places^ and the lusty 
and bold shouted forth their glee. Gangs of men^ in 
all sorts of outlandish habiliments^ wild as those worn 
at some crazy carnival^ rushed to and &o^ seizing upon 
whomsoever they pleased — ^warrant-officers and dan- 
gerous pugilists excepted — pulling and hauling the 
luckless tars about^ till fairly baited into a genial 
warmth. Some were made fast to, and hoisted aloft 
with a will; others, mounted upon oars, were ridden 
fore and aft on a rail, to the boisterous mirth of the 
spectators, any one of whom might be the next victim. 
Swings were rigged from the tops, or the masts; and 
the most reluctant wights being purposely selected, 
spite of all struggles, were swung &om East to West, in 
vast arcs of circles, till almost breathless* Hornpipes, 
fandangoes, Donnybrook-jigs, reels, and quadrilles, 
were danced under the very nose of the most mighty 
captain, and upon the very quarter-deck and poop. 
Sparring and wrestling, too, were all the vogue ; Ken- 
tucky bites were given, and the Indian hug exchanged. 
The din frightened the sea-fowl, that flew by with 
accelerated wing. 

It is worth mentioning that several casualties occurred, 
of which, however, I will relate but one. While the 
*^ skylarking'* was at its height, one of the fore-top- 
men— an ugly-tempered devil of a Portuguese, looking 



162 WHTTE-JACKET ; OB, 

on— swore that he would be the death of any man who 
laid violent hands upon his inviolable person. This 
threat being overheard, a band of desperadoes, coming 
up from behind, tripped him up in an instant, and in 
the twinkling of an eye the Portuguese was straddling 
an oar, borne aloft by an uproarious multitude, who 
rushed him along the deck at a railroad gallop. The 
living mass of arms all round and beneath him was so 
dense, that every time he inclined to one side he was 
instantly pushed upright, but only to fidl over again, to 
receive another push &om the contrary direction. Pre- 
sently, disengaging his hands from those who held 
them, the enraged seaman drew from his bosom an 
iron belaying-pin, and recklessly laid about him to 
right and left. Most of his persecutors fled; but some 
eight or ten still stood their ground, and, while bearing 
him aloft, endeavoured to wrest the weapon from his 
hands. In this attempt one man was struck on the 
head, and dropped insensible. He was taken up for 
dead, and carried below to Cuticle, the surgeon, while 
the Portuguese was put under guard. But the wound 
did not prove very serious ; and in a few days the man 
was walking about the deck, with his head well ban- 
daged. 
This occurrence put an end to the ^' skylarking," 

further head-breaking being strictly prohibited. In 
due time the Portuguese paid the penalty of his rash- 
ness at the gangway; where once again the officers 
shipped their quarter-deck faces. 



THE WOaLD IN A MAN-OV-WAR. 168 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THB PITCH 09 THS OAPS. 



Eke the calm had yet left us, a sail had been dis- 
cerned from the fore-top-mast-head, at a great distance, 
probably three leagues or more. At first it was a merfe 
speck, altogether out of sight from the deck. By the 
force of attraction, or something else equally inscru- 
table, two ships in a calm, and equally aflfected by the 
cnrrents, will always approximate, more or less. Though 
there was not a breath of wind, it was not a great while 
before the strange sail was descried from our bulwarks ; 
gradually, it drew still nearer. 

What was she, and whence? There is no object 
which so excites interest and conjecture, and, at the 
same time, baffles both, as a sail, seen as a mere speck 
on these remote seas off Cape Horn. 

A breeze ! a breeze ! for lo ! the stranger is now per- 
ceptibly nearing the frigate; the officer^s spy-glass 
pronounces her a fdll-rigged ship, with all sail set, and 
coming right down to us, though in our own vicinity 
the calm still reigns. 

She is bringing the wind with her. Hurrah ! Ay, 
there it is I Behold how mincingly it creeps over the 
sea, just ruffling and crisping it. 



164 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

Our top-men were at once sent aloft to loose the sails^ 
and presently they faintly began to distend. As yet we 
hardly had steerage way. Toward simset the stranger 
bore down before the wind, a complete pyramid of can- 
vass. Never before, I venture to say, was Cape Horn 
so audaciously insulted. Stun' -sails alow and aloft; 
royals, moon-sails, and everything* else. She glided 
under our stern, within hailing distance, and the signal- 
quarter-master ran up our ensign to the gaff. 

" Ship ahoy \" cried the Lieutenant of the Watdi, 
through his trumpet. 

" Halloa ! '^ bawled an old fellow in a green jacket, 
clapping one hand to his mouth, while he held on with 
the other to the mizzen-shrouds. 

^' What ship's that?'' 

'^ The Sultan, Indiaman, from New York, and bound 
to Callao and Canton, sixty days out, aU well. What 
frigate's that?" 

^^ The United States ship Neversink, homeward 
bound." 

^'Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" yelled our enthusias- 
tic countryman, transported with patriotism. 

By this time the Sultan had swept past, but the 
Lieutenant of the Watch could not withhold a parting 
admonition. 

*' D'ye hear ? You'd better take in some of your 
flying-kites there. Look out for Cape Horn 1" 

But the friendly advice was lost in the now increasing 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAE. 165 

wind. With a suddenness by no means unusual in 
these latitudes^ the light breeze soon became a succes- 
sion of sharp squalls^ and our sail-proud braggadocio of 
an Indiaman was observed to let every thing go by the 
run^ his t'-gallant stun'-sails and flying-jib taking quick 
leave of the spars ; the flying-jib was swept into the air^ 
rolled together for a few minutes^ and tossed about in 
the squalls like a foot-ball. But the wind played no 
such pranks with the more prudently managed canvass 
of the Neversink, though before many hours it was 
stirring times with us. 

About midnight^ when the starboard watch^ to which 
I belonged^ was below, the boatswain's whistle was 
heard, followed by the shrill cry for " All hands take in 
sail ! jump men, and save ship ! " 

Springing from our hammocks, we found the frigate 
leaning over to it so steeply, that it was with difiiculty 
we could climb the ladders leading to the upper deck. 

Here the scene was awful. The vessel seemed to be 
sailing on her side. The main-deck guns had several 
days previously been run in and housed, and the port- 
holes closed, but the lee carronades on the quarter-deck 
and forecastle were plunging through the sea, which 
undulated over them in milk-white billows of foam. 
With every lurch to leeward the yard-arm-ends seemed 
to dip in the sea, while forward the spray dashed over 
the bows in cataracts, and drenched the men who were 
on the fore-yard. By this time the deck was alive with 
the whole strength of the ship's company, five hundred 



166 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

men^ officers and all, mostly clinging to the weather 
bulwarks. The occasional phosphorescence of the yeasty- 
sea cast a glare upon their uplifted faces^ as a night fire 
in a populous city lights up the panic-stricken crowd. 

In a sudden gale, or when a large quantity of sail is 
suddenly to be fttrled, it is the custom for the First 
Lieutenant to take the trumpet from whoever happens 
then to be officer of the deck. But Mad Jack had the 
trumpet that watch ; nor did the First Lieutenant now 
seek to wrest it from his hands. Every eye was upon 
him, as if we had chosen him from among us all, to 
decide this battle with the elements, by single combat 
with the spirit of the Cape ; for Mad Jack was the saving 
genius of the ship, and so proved himself that night. 
I owe this right hand, that is this moment flying over 
my sheet, and all my present being to Mad Jack. The 
ship's bows were now butting, battering, ramming, and 
thundering over and upon the head seas, and with 
a horrible wallowing sound our whole hull was rolling in 
the trough of the foam. The gale came athwart the 
deck, and every sail seemed bursting with its wild breath. 

All the quarter-masters, and several of the forecastle- 
men, were swarming round the double-wheel on the 
quarter-deck. Some jumping up and down, with thdr 
hands upon the spokes ; for the whole helm and gal- 
vanised keel were fiercely feverish with the life imparted 
to them by the tempest. 

'^ Hard up the helm I" shouted Captain Claret, burst- 
ing from his cabin Uke a ghost, in his night-dress. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 167 

'^ Damn you!'' raged Mad Jack to the quarter- 
masters; '^ hard doum — ^hard doum, I say^ and be damned 
to you!" 

Contrary orders ! but Mad Jack's were obeyed. His 
object was to throw the ship into the wind, so as the 
better to admit of close-reefing the top-sails. But 
though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to 
clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal 
strain on the canvass. It now blew a hurricane. The 
spray flew over the ship in floods. The gigantic masts 
seemed about to snap under the world-wide strain of 
the three entire top-sails. 

" Clew down ! clew down ! " shouted Mad Jack, 
husky with excitement, and in a frenzy, beating his 
trumpet against one of the shrouds. But, owing to the 
slant of the ship, the thing could not be done. It was 
obvious that before many minutes something must go — 
either sails, rigging, or sticks ; perhaps the hull itself, 
and all hands. 

Presently a voice from the top exclaimed that there 
was a rent in the main-top-sail. And instantly we 
heard a report like two or three muskets discharged 
together ; the vast sail was rent up and down Uke the 
Vail of the Temple. This saved the main-mast; for 
the yard was now clewed down with comparative ease, 
and the top-men laid out to stow the shattered canvass. 
Soon, the two remaining top-sails were also clewed 
down and close reefed. 



168 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

Above ail the roar of the tempest and the shouts of 
the crew^ was heard the dismal toUmg of the ship^s bell 
— ahnost as large as that of a village church — ^which 
the violent rolling of the ship was occasioning. Imagi- 
nation cannot conceive the horror of such a sound in 
a night-tempest at sea. 

" Stop that ghost!" roared Mad Jack; ''away, one 
of you, and wrench oflf the clapper !" 

But no sooner was this ghost gagged, than a still 
more appalling sound was heard, the rolling to and firo 
of the heavy shot, which, on the gun- deck, had broken 
loose from the gun-racks, and converted that part of 
the ship into an immense bowling-alley. Some hands 
were sent down to secure them ; but it was as much as 
their lives were worth. Several were maimed; and the 
midshipmen who were ordered to see the duty per- 
formed reported it impossible, until the storm abated. 

The most terrific job of all was to furl the main-sail, 
which, at the commencement of the squalls, had beea 
clewed up, coaxed and quieted as much as possible with 
the bunt-lines and slab-lines. Mad Jack waited some 
time for a lull, ere he gave an order so perilous to be 
executed. For to furl this enormous sail, in such 
a gale, required at least fifty men on the yard ; whose 
weight, superadded to that of the ponderous stick itsd^ 
still further jeopardized their lives. But there was na 
prospect of a cessation of the gale, and the order was 
at last given. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 169 

At .this time a hurricane of slanting sleet and haU 
was descending upon us ; the rigging was coated with 
a thin, glare of ice, formed within the hour. 

" Aloft, main-yard-men ! and all you main-top-men ! 
and fori the main-sail \" cried Mad Jack. 

I dashed down my hat, slipped out of my quilted 
jacket in an instant, kicked the shoes &om my feet, 
and, with a crowd of others, sprang for the rigging. 
Above the bulwarks (which in a frigate are so high as 
to afford much protection to those on deck) the gale 
was horrible. The sheer force of the wind flattened us 
to the rigging as we ascended, and every hand seemed 
congealing to the icy shrouds by which we held. 

" Up — ^up, my brave hearties !" shouted Mad Jack ; 
and up we got, some way or other, all of us, and groped 
our way out on the yard-arms. 

*' Hold on, every mother's son!'' cried an old 
quarter-gunner at my side. He was bawling at the 
top of his compass ; but in the gale, he seemed to be 
whispering ; and I only heard him from his being right 
to windward of me. 

But his hint was unnecessary; I dug my nails into 
the Jack-stays, and swore that nothing but death should 
part me and them until I was able to turn round and 
look to windward. As yet, this was impossible ; I could 
scarcely hear the man to leeward at my elbow; the 
wind seemed to snatch the words from his mouth and 
fly away with them to the South Pole. 

VOL. I. I 



170 WHITE-JACEBI ; OB, 

All this while the sail itself was flymg about^ some* 
times catching over our head, and threatening to tear 
us from the yard in spite of all our hugging. Vot 
about three quarters of an hour we thus hung fi^os* 
pended right over the rampant billows, which curled 
their very crests under the feet of some four or five 
of us clinging to the lee-yard-arm, as if to float utf 
from our place. 

Presently, the word passed along the yard from 
windward, that we were ordered to come down and 
leave the sail to blow, since it could not be furled. 
A midshipman, it seemed, had been sent up by the 
officer of the deck to give the order, as no trumpet 
cotdd be heard where we were. 

Those on the weather yard-arm managed to crB#l 
upon the spar and scramble down the rising; b«ft 
with us, upon the extreme leeward side^ this f^t iras 
out of the question; it wai^ Ut^ally, like dimbitig 
a predpiee to get to windward in order to reach d^ 
shrouds ; besides the entire yard was now encased in 
ice, and our hands and feet were so numb that wt 
dare not trust our lives to them. Nevertheless, by 
assisting each other, we contrived to throw oursehrte 
prostrate along the yard, and embrace it with our wnoak 
and legs. In this position, the stun'-sail-booms greaify 
assisted in seciuring our hold. Strange as it Inay 
appear, I do not suppose that, at this moment, tltt 
slightest sensation of fear was felt by one man on ihltt 



THE WOBLD IN X MAN-OF-WAR. 171 

jnrd^ We dang to it mtSi might and main ; but this 
Yas iikstinct The troth 18^ tkuU^ in circam«taaices like 
these^ the sense of fear is annihilated in the unutterable 
aghtft that fill all the eye, and the soimda that fill 
all the ear. You become identified with the tempeftt ; 
yoat insignificance is lort in the liot (^ the stormy 
uniyerse around* 

Below ufi^ our noble fiigate seemed thrice its real 
length*^a rast black wedge^ opposing its widest end to . 
the combined foiy of the sea and wind. 

At length the first fury of the gale began to abate^ 
and we at once fell to pounding our Uands^ as a .pre- 
liminary operation to going to work; for a gang of 
men had now ascended to help secure what was left of 
the sail ; we somehow packed it away^ at last^ and came 
down. 

About noon the next day^ the gale so moderated that 
we shook two reefs out of the top-sails^ set new courses^ 
and stood due east with the wind astern. 

Thus^ all the fine weather we encoimtered after first 
weighing anchor on the pleasant Spanish coast^ was but 
the prelude to this one terrific night ; more especially^ 
diat treacherous calm immediately preceding it. But 
how could we reach our long-promised homes without 
encountering Cape Horn ? by^what possibility avoid it ? 
And though some ships have weathered it without 
these perils^ yet by far the greater part must encounter 
them. Ludy it is that it comes about midway in the 

t2 



172 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

homeward-boimd passage^ so that the sailors have time 
to prepare for it, and time to recover from it after it 
is astern. 

But, sailor or landsman, there is some sort of a Cape 
Horn for all. Soys! beware of it; prepare for it 
in time. Oraybeards ! thank God it is passed. And 
ye lucky livers, to whom by some rare fatality your 
Gape Horns are placid as Lake Lemans, flatter not 
yourselves that good luck is judgment and discretion ; 
for all the yolk in your eggs, you might have foundered 
and gone down, had the Spirit of the Cape said the 
word* 



173 
THE WOBID m A MAN-OF-WAE. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

SOMB THOUGHTS OKOWINO OUT OF HAD JAOK*S OOUNTlRMAlTDIHa HIS 

supsbiok's OBDEB. 

In time of perils like the needle to the loadstone^ 
obedience^ irrespective of rank^ generally flies to him 
who is best fitted to command. The truth of this 
seemed eviaced in the case of Mad Jack, during the 
gale, and especially at that perilous moment when he 
countermanded the Captain's order at the helm. But 
every seaman knew, at the time, that the Captain's 
order was an unwise one in the extreme; perhaps 
worse than unwise. 

These two orders, given by the Captain and his Lieu- 
tenant, exactly contrasted their characters. By putting 
the helm hard up, the Captain was for scudding ; that 
is, for flying away from the gale. Whereas, Mad Jack 
was for runmng the ship into its teeth. It is needless 
to say that, in almost all cases of similar hard squalls 
and gales, the latter step, though attended with more 
appalling appearances, is, in reaUty, the safer of the 
two, and the most generally adopted. 

Scudding makes you a slave to the blast, which 
drives you headlong before it j but running up into the 
wind's eye enables you, in a degree, to hold it at bay. 



174 imiTB-JACKET; OR, 

Scudding exposes to the gale your stem, the weakest 
part of your hull ; the contrary course presents to it 
your bows, your strongest part. As with ships, so with 
men; he who turns his back to his foe gives him an 
advantage. Whereas, our ribbed chests, like the 
ribbed bows of a fiigate, are as bulk-heads to dam 
off an onset. 

That night, off the pitch of the Cape^ Captain Claxet 
was hurried forth from his disguises^ and, at a manhood- 
.testing conjuncture, appeared in hi$ true colours. A 
thing which every man in the shxp had long suspected, 
that night was proved true. Hitherto, in going about 
the ship, and casting his glances among the men, the 
peculiarly lustreless r^ose of the Captain's eye--his 
slow, even, imnecessarily methodical step, and the forced 
firmness of his whole demeanour — ^though, to a casual 
observer, seemingly expressive of the consciousness of 
command and a desire to strike subjection among the 
crew — all this, to some minds, had only been deemed 
indications of the fact that Captain Claret^ while care* 
fiiUy shunning positive excesses, continually kept him* 
self in an uncertain equilibrio between soberness and 
its reverse ; which equilibrio might be destroyed by the 
first sharp vicissitude of events. 

And though this is only a surmise, nevertheless, as 
having some knowledge c^ brandy and mankind, White- 
Jacket will venture to state that, had Captain Claret 
becii an out-and-out temperance man, he would never 



THE WOBU) IN A liAK-OP-WAE. 176 

have given that most imprudent order to hard up the 
Jiehoi. He would either have held his peace, and stayed 
ia his cabin, like his gracious majesty the Commodore, 
or else have anticipated Mad Jack's order, and thun- 
dered forth '^ Hiprd down the helm I^' 

To shoF how Httle real sway at times have the 
severest restrictive laws, and how spontaneous is the 
instinct of discretion in some minds, it must here be 
added, that though Mad Jack, under a hot impulse, 
had countermanded an order of his superior officer 
before his very face, yet that severe Article of War, to 
which he thus rendered himself obnoxious, was never 
enforced against him. Nor, so far as any of the cxew 
ever knew, did the Captain even venture to reprimand 
)um for his temerity. 

It has been said that Mad Jack himself was a lover 
of strong drink. So he was. But here we only see the 
virtue of being placed in a station constantly demanding 
fk cool head and steady nerves, and the misfortune of 
filling a post that does not at all times demand these 
qualities. So exact and methodical in luost things was 
the discipline of the frigate, that, to a eertain extent. 
Captain Claret was exempted from personal interposition 
in many of its current events, and thereby, perhaps, 
was he lulled into security, under the enticing lee of his 
decanter. 

But as for Mad JadL, he must stand his regular 
watches, and pace the quarter-deck at night, and keep 



176 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

a sharp eye to wiiidward. Hence^ at sea^ Mad Jade 
tried to make a point of keeping sober, though in rery 
fine weather he was sometimes betrayed into a glass too 
many; and got himself into difficulties, as has beem 
mentioned elsewhere. But with Cape Horn before him, 
he took the temperance pledge outright^ till that 
perilous promontory should be far astern. 

The leading incident of the gale irresistibly invites 
the question, Are there incompetent officers in the 
American Navy? — ^that is, incompetent to the due 
performance of whatever duties may devolve upon them. 
But in that gallant marine, which, during the. Late 
War, gained so much of what is called glory j can there 
possibly be to-day incompetent officers? 

As in the camp ashore^ so on the quarter-deck at sea 
— ^the trumpets of one victory drown the muffled drums 
of a thousand defeats. And, in degree, this holds true 
of those events of war which are neuter in their cha«- 
racter, neither making renown nor disgrace. Besides, 
as a long array of ciphers, led by but one solitary 
numeral, swells, by mere force of aggregation, into an 
immense arithmetical sum ; even so, in some brilliant 
actions, do a crowd of officers, each inefficient in him- 
self, aggregate renown, when banded together, and led 
by a numeral Nelson or a Wellington. And the re- 
nown of such heroes, by outliving themselves, descenda 
as a heritage to their subordinate survivors. One large 
brain and one large heart have virtue sufficient to mag- 



THB WOBLD IN A HAN-OP-WAE. 177 

netue a whole fleet or an army. And if all the men 
who, since the beginning of the worlds have mainly 
contributed to the warlike successes of nations^ were 
90W mustered together^ we should be amazed to behold 
bat a handful of heroes. For there is no heroism in 
merely running in and out a gun at a port-hdle, env^ 
loped in smoke and vapour^ or in firing off muskets in 
platoons at the word of command. This kind of merely 
manual valour is often bom of trepidation at the heart. 
There may be men^ individually craven, who, united, 
may display even temerity. Yet it would be false to 
deny that, in some instances, the lowest privates have 
acquitted themselves with even more gallantry than 
their commodores. True heroism is not in the hand, 
\fat in the heart and the head. 

But are there incompetent officers in the gallant 
American navy? For an American, the question is of 
no grateful cast. White-Jacket must again evade it, 
hy referring to an historical fact in the history of 
a kindred marine, which, from its long standing and 
magnitude, furnishes many more examples of aU kinds 
liian our own. And this is the only reason why it is 
ever referred to in this narrative. I thank God I am 
free from all national invidiousness. 

It is indirectly on record in the books of the English 
Admiralty, that in the year 1808 — after the death of 
Lord Nelson — when Lord Collingwood commanded on 
the Mediterranean station, and his broken health 

i3 



178 WHITE- JACKET ; OK, 

dnduced Mm to solicit a furlough, that out of a list of 
upwards of one hundred admirals, not a single officer was 
ibund who was deemed qualified to relieve the applicant 
with credit to the country^ This fact CoUingwood 
sealed with his life ; for, hopeless of b^ng recalled, he 
-shortly after died, worn out^ at his post« .Now, if this 
was the case in so renowned a marine as England's, 
what must be inferred with respect to our own ? But 
herein no special disgrace is involved. For the truth is, 
.that to be an acoompUshed and skilful naval generalis- 
simo needs natural capabilities of an uncommon ord^. 
Still more, it may safely be asserted, that, worthily to 
command even a frigate, requires a degree of natural 
•heroism, talent, judgment, and integrity, that is denied 
to mediocrity. Tet these qualifications are not only 
required, but d^nanded ; cmd no one has a right to be 
a naval captain unless he possesses them.. 

Regarding Lieutenants, there are not a few Sdlvagees 
and Paper Jacks in the American navy. Many Com- 
modores know that they have seldom taken a line-of- 
battle ship to sea, without feeling more or less nervous- 
ness when some of the lieutenants have the deck at 
night. 

According to the last Navy Register (1849), thi^re 
are now 68 Captains in the American navy, coUeetivdy 
drawing about $300,000 annually from the public trea- 
sury ; also^ 297 Commanders, drawing about $200,000 ; 
and 377 Lieutenants, drawing about half a million; and 



THE WOBLD IN ▲ HAN.07-WAB. 179 

451 Midshipmen (indoding Fassed-midshipmen), also 
drawing nearly half a million. Considering the known 
laets^ that some of these officers are seldom or never 
sent to sea^ owing to the Navy Department being well 
aware of their inefficiency ; that others are detailed for 
pen-and-ink work at observatories^ and solvers of loga- 
rithms in the Coast Survey ; while the really merito- 
rious officers^ who are accomplished practical seamen^ 
are known to be sent from ship to ship^ with but a small 
interval of a furlough ; consodering all this^ it is not too 
much to say, that no small portion of the million and 
a half of money above mentioned is annually paid to 
national pacisioners in disguise, who live on the navy 
without serving it. 

Nothing like this can be even insinuated against 
the ^^ forward officers?* — Boatswains, Ounners, &c. ; 
nor against the petty officers — Captains of the Tops, 
&c. ; nor against the able seamen in the navy. For if 
any of these are found wanting, they are forthwith 
disrated or discharged. 

True, all experience teaches, that whenever there is 
a great national establishment, employing large num» 
bers of officials, th^ public must be reconciled to sup« 
p(»rt many incompetent men ; for such is the favouritism 
and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these 
establishments, that some incompetent persons are 
always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the 
worthy. 



180 WHITB- JACKET ; OB, 

NeTertheless^ in a couatry like ours, boasting of the 
political equality of all social conditions, it is a great 
reproach that such a thing as a common seaman rising 
to the rank of a commissioned officer in our navy is 
nowadays almost unheard o£ Tet, in former times, 
when officers have so risen to rank, they have generally 
proved of signal usefulness in the service, and sometimes 
have reflected solid honour upon the country. Instances 
in point might be mentioned. 

Is it not well to have our institutions of a piece ? 
Any American landsman may hope to become Pre- 
sident of the Union — commodore of our squadron of 
states. And every American sailor should be placed 
in such a position, that he might freely aspire to com- 
mand a squadron of Mgates. 

But if there is good reason to believe, that there are 
some incompetent officers in our navy; we have stiU 
better, and more abundant reason to know, that there 
are others, whom both nature and art have united in 
eminently qualifying for it; and whom the service 
does not so much honour, as they may be said to 
honour it. 

And the only purpose of this chapter is, to point out 
as the peculiar desert of individuals, that generalized 
reputation, which most men, perhaps, are apt to ascribe 
in the gross, to one and all the members of a popular 
military establishment. 



TOE WQKLD IN A UAK-OI-WAS. 181 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



IDOIHO AWAT. 



Bight before the wind ! Aj, blow^ blow, ye breezes ; 
BO long as ye stay fair, and we are homeward boond, 
what care the jolly crew 7 

It is worth mentioning here that, in nineteen cases 
oat of twenty, a passage from the Pacific round the 
Cape is almost sore to be much shorter, and attended 
with less hardship, than a passage undertaken from the 
Atiantic. The reason is, that the gales are mostly from 
the westward, also the currents. 

But, after all, going before the wind in a frigate, in 
such a tempest, has its annoyances and drawbacks, as 
well as many other blessings. The disproportionate 
weight of metal upon the spar and gun-decks induces 
a violent rolling, unknown to merchant ships. We 
rolled and rolled on our way, like the world in its orbit, 
shipping green seas on both sides, untn the old frigate 
dipped and went into it like a diving-bell. 

The hatchways of some armed vessels are but poorly 
secured in bad weather. This was peculiarly the case 
with those of the Neversink. They were merely spread 
over with an old tarpaulin, cracked and rent in every 
direction. 



183 WHIIE-JACKET; OK, 

In fair weather, the ship^s company messed on the 
gun-deck ; but as this was now flooded almost continu* 
ally, we were obliged to take our meals upon the berth- 
deck, the next one below. One day, the messes of the 
starboard- watch were seated here at dinner ; forming 
little groups, twelve or fifteen men in each, reclining 
about the beef-kids and their pots and pans; when all 
of SL sudden the ship was seized with such a paroxysm 
of rolling that, in a single instant, everything on the 
berth-deck — ^pots, kids, sailors, pieces of beef, bread- 
bags, clothes-bags, and barges — ^were tossed indiscri^ 
minately from side to side. It was impossible to stay 
one's self; there was nothing but the bare deck to 
ding to, which was slippery with the contents of the 
kids, and heaving under us as if there were a volcano 
in the frigate's hold. While we were yet sliding in 
uproarious crowds — all seated — the windows of the dedc 
opened, and floods of brine descended, simultaneously 
with a violent lee-roU. The shower was hailed by the 
reckless tars with a hurricane of yells ; although, for an 
instant, I really imagined we w^re about being swamped 
in the sea, such voluxnes of water came cascading 
down. 

A day or two after, we had made sufficient easting to 
stand to th^ northward, which we did, with the wind 
astern ; thus fairly turning the comer without abating 
our rate of progress. Though we had seen no land 
since leaving Calloa, Cape Horn was said to be some- 



THE WOBU) IN A liAK-OF-WAB. 183 

where to tbe West of us ; and though there was no 
positiye evidence of the fact^ the weather encoun- 
tered might be accounted pretty good presumptive 
proof. 

The hmd near Cape Hom^ however, is well worth 
jieeing, especiaQy Staten Land. Upon one occasion, 
the ship in which I then happened to be sailing drew 
near this place from the northward, with a fair, free 
wind, blowing steadily, through a bright translucent 
day, whose air was almost mnsical with the clear, glit* 
tering cold. On our starboard beam, like a -file of 
glaciers in Switzerland, lay this Staten Land, gleaming 
in snow-white barrenness and solitude. Unnumbered 
white albatross were skimming the sea near by, and 
.douds of smaller white wings feU throng the air like 
snow-flakes. High, towering in their own turbaned 
mows, the far inland pinnacles loomed up, like the 
border of some other world. Flashing walls and crystal 
, battlements, like the diamond watch-towers along 
heaven's furthest frontier. 

After leaving the latitude of the Cape, we had 
several storms of snow ; one night a considerable quan- 
tity laid upon the decks, and some of the sailors 
enjoyed the juvenile diversion of snow-hailing. Woe 
unto the ^' middy'' who that night went forward of 
.the booms. Such a target for snow-balls ! The throw- 
ers could never be known. By some curious sleight in 
hurling the missiles, they seemed to be thrown on 



184 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

board by some hoydenish sea-nympbs outside th6 
frigate. 

At daybreak Midshipman Pert went below to the 
surgeon with an alarming wound^ gallantly received ia, 
discharging his perilous duty on the forecastle. The 
officer of the deck had sent him on an errand^ to tell 
the boatswain that he was wanted in the captain's cabin. 
While in the very act of performing the exploit of de- 
livering the message, Mr. Pert was struck on the nose 
with a snow-ball of wondrous compactness. Upon being 
informed of the disaster, the rogues expressed the live" 
liest sympathy. Pert was no favourite. 

After one of these storms, it was a curious sight to 
see the men reUeving the uppermost deck of its load of 
snow. It became the duty of the captain of each gun 
to keep his own station clean; accordingly^ with an old 
broom, or " squilgee,'' he proceeded to business^ often 
quarrelling with his next-door neighbours about scraping 
their snow on his premises. It was like Broadway in 
winter, the morning after a storm, when rival shop-boys 
are at work cleaning the side- walk. 

Now and then, by way of variety, we had a fall of 
hail-stones, so big that sometimes we found ourselves 
dodging them. 

The Commodore had a Polynesian servant on board, 
whose services he had engaged at the Society Islands. 
Unlike his countrymen, Wooloo was of a sedate, earnest, 
and philosophic temperament. Having never been out- 



THE WOfiLD IN A MAN-OF-WAA. 185 

side of the tropics before^ he found many phenomena 
off Cape Horn, which absorbed his attention^ and set 
him, like other philosophers, to feign theories corre« 
spending to the marvels he beheld. At the first snow, 
when he saw the deck covered all over with a white 
powder, as it were, he expanded his eyes into stew-pans; 
but npon examining the strange substance, he decided 
that this must be a species of superfine flour, such as 
was compounded into his master^s " duffs/' and other 
dainties. In vain did an experienced natural philo- 
sopher belonging to the fore-top maintain before his 
face, that in this hypothesis Wooloo was mistaken; 
Wooloo's opinion remained unchanged for some time. 

As for the hailstones, they transported him; he went 
about with a bucket, making collections, and receiving 
contributions, for the purpose of carrying them home 
to his sweethearts for glass beads ; but having put his 
bucket away, and returning to it again, and finding 
nothing but a little water, he accused the by-standers 
of stealing his precious stones. 

This suggests another story concerning him. The 
fijrst time he was given a piece of '' duff'' to eat, he was 
observed to pick out very carefully every raisia, and 
throw it away, with a gesture indicative of the highest 
disgust. It turned out that he had taken the raisins 
for bugs. 

In our man-of-war, this semi-savage, wandering about 
the gun-deck in his barbaric robe, seemed a being from 



186 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

0ome other sphere. His tastes were our abominations : 
ours his. Our creed he rgected : his we. We thought 
him a loon : he fancied us fools. Had the case been 
reversed; had we been Polynesians and he an American, 
our mutual opinion of each other would still have rC'- 
mained the same. A fact proving that neither was 
wrong, but both right. 



THE TeORLD IN A XAN-OF-WAB. 187 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



im HiaHT-WAVOHSS. 



Thottoh leaving the Cape behind us, the severe cold 
still continued, and one of its worst consequences was 
the almost incurable drowsiness induced thereby during 
the long night-watches. All along the decks, huddled 
between the guns, stretched out on the carronade slides, 
and in every accessible nook and comer, you would see 
the sailors wrapped in their monkey jackets, in a state 
of half-conscioiis torpidity, lying still and freezing alive, 
without the power to rise and shake themselves. 

" Up— up, you lazy dogs !'' our good-natured Third 
lieutenant, a Virginian, would cry, rapping them with 
his speaking trumpet. " Get up, and stir about." 

But in vain. They would rise for an instant, and as 
soon as his back was turned, down they would drop, as 
if shot through the heart 

Often have I lain thus, when the fact, that if I laid 
much longer I would actually freeze to death, would 
come over me with such overpowering force as to break 
the icy spell, and starting to my feet, I would endea- 
vour to go through the combined manual and pedal 
exercise to restore the circulation. The first fling of 
my benumbed arm generally struck me in the face, 



188 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

instead of smiting my chesty its true destination. But 
in these cases one^s muscles have their own way. 

In exercising my other extremities^ I was obliged to 
hold on to something, and leap with both feet ; for my 
limbs seemed as destitute of joints as a pair of canrass 
pants spread to dry, and frozen stiff. 

When an order was giyen to haul the braces — ^which 
required the strength of the entire watch, some two 
hundred men — a spectator would have supposed that all 
hands had received a stroke of the palsy. Boused 
from their state of enchantment, they came halting an^ 
limping across the decks, falling against each other, 
and, for a few moments, almost unable to handle the 
ropes. The slightest exertion seemed intolerable ; and 
frequently a body of eighty or a hundred men, sum- 
moned to brace the main-yard, would hang over the 
rope for several minutes, waiting for some active fellow 
to pick it up and put it into their hands. Even thexi^ 
it was some time before they were able to do anything. 
They made all the motions usual in hauling a rope, but 
it was a long time before the yard budged an inch. It 
was to no purpose that the officers swore at them, or 
sent the midshipmen among them to find out who those 
" horse-marines^' and " sogers'* were. The sailors were 
so enveloped in monkey jackets, that in the dark night 
there was no telling one from the other. 

"Here, you, sir!" cries little Mr. Pert, eagerly 
catching hold of the skirts of an old sea-dog, and 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 189 

trying to turn him ronnd^ so as to peer under his 
tarpaulin. " Who are you, sir ? What's your name ? " 

"Find out, Milk-and- Water/' was the impertinent 
ire^joinder. 

*' Blast you ! you old rascal ; Fll have you licked for 
that ! Tell me his name, some of you !'' turning round 
to the bystanders. 

" Gammon I'' cries a voice at a distance. 

" Hang me, but I know you, Sir ! and here's at you 1" 
IN> saying, Mr. Pert drops the impenetrable unknown, 
and makes into the crowd after the bodiless voice. But 
the attempt to find an owner for that voice is quite as 
idle as the effort to discover the contents of the monkey 
jacket. 

And here sorrowful mention must be made of some- 
thing which, during this state of affairs, most sorely 
afflicted me. Most monkey jackets are of a dark hue ; 
mine, as I have fifiy times repeated, and say again, was 
white. And thus, in those long, dark nights, when it 
was my quarter-watch on deck, and not in the top, and 
others went skulking and '^ sogering" about the decks, 
secure from detection — their identity undiscoverable — 
my own hapless jacket for ever proclaimed the name of 
its wearer. It gave me many a hard job, which other- 
wise I should have escaped. When an officer wanted 
a man for any particular duty — running aloft, say, 
to communicate some slight order to the captains of 
the tops — how easy, in that mob of incognitoes, to 



190 waxs!MjL(xm; osl, 

individualize '' that white Jacket/* and despatch him on 
the errand I Then, it would never do for me to hang: 
back when the ropes were being polled. 

Indeed^ upon all these occasions^ such alacrttjr and 
cheerfulness was I obliged to display, that I was fre- 
quently held up as an illustrious ei^ample of activity, 
which the rest were called upon to emulate^ '' {^Eill«^ 
pull ! you lazy lubbers ! Look at White-Jacket ther^ ; 
pull like him!" 

Oh! how I eiteerated my luckless garment f how 
often I scoured the deck with it, to give it a tawny 
hue! how often t supplioated the inexorable Brudiy 
captain of the paint-room, for just one bmshfiil of hit 
invaluable pigment ! Frequently I meditated giving it 
a toss overboard ; but I h^ not the resolution. Jacket- 
less at sea! Jacketless so near Cape Horn! Tbe 
thought was unendurable. And, at least, my garment 
was a jacket in name, if not in utility* 

At length I essayed a '' swap/' '* Hero, Bob,'' said 
1, assuming all possible suavity, and aooosting a mesa* 
mate with a sort of diplomatic assumption of supexi^* 
ority, "suppose I was ready to part with this 'grego' of 
mine, and take yours in exchange-^what would you 
give me to boot?" 

" Give you to boot ?^* he exclaimed, with hcttior ; 
" I wouldn't take your infernal jacket for a gift !" 

How I hailed every snow-squall ; for then-— bleasiiigB 
on them !— many of the men became white Jackets along 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-Of-WAB. 191 

with myself; and^ powdered with the flakes^ we all 
looked like millers. 

We had six lieutenants^ all of whom^ with the excep- 
tion of the First lieutenant^ by turns headed the 
watches. Three of these officers^ including Mad Jack^ 
were strict disciplinarians^ and never permitted us to 
lay down on deck during the night. And^ to tell the 
truth, though it caused much growling, it Was far better 
for our health to be thus kept on our feet. So prome* 
nading was all the vogue. For some of us, however, it 
was like pacing in a dungeoi^ ; for, US we had to keep at 
our stations — some at the halyards^ some at the braces, 
and elsewhere — ^and were not allowed to stroll about 
indefinitely, and fairly take the measure of the ship's 
entire keel, we were fain to confine ourselves to the space 
of a very few feet. But the worst of this was soon 
over. The suddenness of the change in the temperature 
consequent on leaving Cape Horn, and steering to the 
northward with a ten-knot breeze, is a noteworthy 
thing. To-day, you are assailed by a blast that seems 
to have edged itself on icebergs ; but in little more than 
a week, your jacket may be superfluous. 

One word more about Cape Horn, and we have done 
with it. 

Tears hence, when a ship canal shall have penetrated 
the Isthmus of Darien, and the traveller be taking his 
seat in the cars at Cape Cod for Astoria, it will be held 
a thing almost incredible that, for so long a period. 



192 WHITE- JACSjrr ; ob, 

vessels bound to the Nor^-west Coast from New York 
should^ by going round Cape Hom^ have lengthened 
their voyages some thousands of miles. ** In those 
unenlightened days^^ (I quote^ in advance, the language 
of some future philosopher], "entire years were fre- 
quently consumed in making the voyage to and from 
the Spice Islands, the present fashionable watering- 
place of the beau-monde of Oregon/' Such must be 
our national progress. 

Why, Sir, that boy of yours wiU, one of these days, 
be sending your grandson to the salubrious city of Jeddd 
to spend his summer vacations* 



THE WOKLD m A HAK-OF-WAS. 193 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A PEEP THBOUGH A PORT-HOLE AT THE 817BTES&ANEAN PABTS OF A 

MAN-Or-WAB. 

While now running rapidly away from the bitter 
coast of Patagonia^ battling with the night-watches — 
still cold — as best we may ; come under the lee of my. 
white jacket^ reader^ while I tell of some of the sights 
to be seen in a frigate. 

A hint has already been conveyed concerning the 
subterranean depths of the Neversink^s hold. But 
there is no time here to speak of the spirit-room^ 
a cellar down in the after-hold^ where the sailors' " grog^' 
is kept ; nor of the cable-tiers, where the great hawsers 
and chains are piled^ as you see them at a large ship- 
<;handler^s on shore; nor of the grocer^s vaults^ where 
tierces of sugar, molasses, vinegar, rice, aad flour are 
snugly stowed; nor of the sail-room, fall as a sail- 
maker^s loft ashore— piled up with great top-sails and 
top-gallant-sails^ all ready-folded in their places, like so 
many white vests in a gentleman's wardrobe ; nor of the 
copper and copper-fastened magazine, closely packed 
with kegs of powder, great-gun and small-arm 

VOL. I. K 



194 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

cartridges ; nor of the immense shot-lockers , or subterra- 
nean arsenals, full as a bushel of apples with twenty- 
four-pound balls ; nor of the bread-roam, a large apart- 
ment^ tinned all round within, to keep out the mice, 
where the hard biscuit destined for the consumption of 
five hundred men on a long voyage is stowed away by 
the cubic yard; nor of the vast iron tanks for fresh 
water in the hold, like the reservoir lakes at Fairmount, 
in Philadelphia; nor of the paint-room, where the kegs 
of white-lead, and casks of linseed oil, and all sorts of 
pots and brushes, are kept; nor of the arm&urer^s 
smithy, where the ship's forges and anvils may be heard 
ringing at times; I say, I have no time to speak of 
these things, and many more places of note. 

But there is one very extensive warehouse among the 
rest that needs special mention — the shijfs Yeomavis 
store-room. In the Neversink it was down in the ship's 
basement, beneath the berth-deck, and you went to it 
by way of the Fore^assage, a very dim, devious corridor, 
indeed. Entering — say at noonday — you find yourself 
in a gloomy apartment, lit by a solitary lamp. On one 
side are shelves, filled with balls of marline, ratlin-stuff, 
seizing -stuff, spun-yam, and numerous twiifes of assarted 
sizes. In another direction you see large cases contain- 
ing heaps of articles, reminding one of a shoemaker's 
fumishing-store — ^wooden serving-^naUets, fids, toggles, 
and heavers; iron prickers and marling -spikes; in a 
third quarter you see a sort of hardware shop — shelves 






THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 195 

piled with all maimer of hooks^ bolts^ nails^ screws^ and 
thimbles; and in still another direction^ you see a block- 
maker's store, heaped np with lignmn^yitse sheaves and 
wheels. 

Through low arches in the bnlk-head beyond^ you 
peep in upon distant vaults and catacombs^ obscurely 
lighted in the far end, and showing immense coils of 
new ropes, and other bulky articles, stowed in tiers, all 
savouring of tar. 

But by far the most curious department of these 
mysterious store-rooms is the armoury, where the pikes, 
cutlasses, pistols, and belts, forming the arms of the 
boarders in time of action, are hung against the walls, 
and suspended in thick rows from the beams overhead. 
Here, too, are to be seen scores of Colt's patent re- 
volvers, which, though furnished with but one tube, 
multiply the fatal bullets, as the naval cat-o'-nine-tails, 
with a cannibal cruelty, in one blow nine times multi- 
plies a culprit's lashes ; so that, when a sailor is ordered 
one dozen lashes, the sentence should read one hundred 
and eight. All these arms are kept in the brightest 
order, wearing a fine polish, and may truly be said to 
r^ct credit on the Yeoman and his mates. 

Among the lower grade of officers in a man-of-war, 
that of Yeoman is not the least important. His respon- 
sibilities are denoted by his pay. While the petty 
officers, quarter- gunners, captains of the tops, and 
others, receive but fifteen and eighteen dollars a month 

k2 



196 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

— but little more than a mere able seaman — the 
Yeoman in an American line-of-battle ship receives 
forty dollars, and in a frigate thirty-five dollars per 
month. 

He is accountable for all the articles under his charge, 
and on no account must deliver a yard of twine or 
a tenpenny nail to the boatswain or carpenter, unless 
shown a written requisition and order from the Senior 
Lieutenant. The Yeoman is to be found burrowing in 
his under-ground store-rooms all the day long, in 
readiness to serve licensed customers. But in the 
counter, behind which he usually stands, there is i^o 
place for a till to drop the shillings in, which takes 
away not a little from the most agreeable part of 
a storekeeper's duties. Nor, among the musty, old 
account-books in his desk, where he registers all expen- 
ditures of his stuffs, is there any cash or check book. 

The Yeoman of the Neversink was a somewhat odd 
specimen of a Troglodite. He was a little old man, 
round-shouldered, bald-headed, with great goggle-eyes, 
looking through portentous round spectacles, which he 
called his barnacles. He was imbued with a wonderful 
zeal for the naval service, and seemed to think that, 
in keeping his pistols and cutlasses free from rust, he 
preserved the national honour untarnished. 

After general quarters , it was amusing to watch his 
anxious air as the various petty officers restored to him 
the arms used at the martial exercises of the crew. 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 197 

As saocessiYe bundles would be deposited on his 
counter^ lie would count over the pistols and cutlasses^ 
lake an old housekeeper telling oyer her silver forks 
and spoons in a pantry before retiring for the night. 
And often^ with a sort of dark lantern in his hand^ he 
might be seen poking into his farthest vaults and 
cellars^ and counting over his great coils of ropes^ as if 
they were all jolly puncheons of old Port and Madeira. 
By reason of his incessant watchfulness and unac- 
countable bachelor oddities^ it was very difficult for him 
to retain in his employment the various sailors who^ 
firom time to time, were billeted with him to do the 
duty of subalterns. In particular, he was always 
desirous of having at least one steady, faultless young 
man, of a literary taste, to keep an eye to his account- 
books, and swab out the armoury every morning. It 
was an odious business this, to be immured all day in 
such a bottomless hole, among tarry old ropes and 
villanous guns and pistols. It was with peculiar dread 
that I one day noticed the goggle-eyes of Old Revolver, 
as they called him, fastened upon me with a fatal glance 
of good-will and approbation. He had somehow heard 
of my being a very learned person, who could both read 
and write with extraordinary facility; and, moreover, 
that I was a rather reserved youth, who kept his 
modest, unassuming merits in the background. Sut 
though, from the keen sense of my situation as a man- 
of-war's-man, all this about my keeping myself in the 



198 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

back ground was true enough^ yet I had no idea of 
hiding my diffident merits under ground. I became 
alarmed at the old Yeoman's goggling glances^ lest he 
should drag me down into tarry perdition in his 
hideous store<rooms. But this fate was providentially 
averted, owing to mysterious causes which I never 
could fathom. 



THE WOBU) m A MAN-OF-WAB. 199 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THB OUNNEB UNDEB HATOHBS. 

Among such a crowd of marked characters as were 
to be met with on board our frigate, many of whom 
moved in mysterious circles beneath the lowermost 
deck, and at long intervals flitted into sight like ap- 
paritions, and disappeared again for whole weeks 
together, there were some who inordinately excited my 
curiosity, and whose names, callings, and precise abodes 
I industriously sought out, in order to learn something 
satisfactory concerning them. 

While engaged in these inquiries, often fruitless, or 
but partially gratified, I could not but regret that there 
was no public printed Directory for the Neversink, such 
as they have in large towns, containing an alphabetic 
list of all the crew, and where they might be found. 
Also, in losing myself in some remote, dark comer of 
the bowels of the frigate, in the vicinity of the various 
store-rooms, shops, and warehouses, I much lamented 
that no enterprising tar had yet thought of compiling 
a Hand-book of the Neversink^ so that the tourist might 
have a reliable guide. 

Indeed, there were several parts of the ship under 
hatches shrouded in mystery, and completely inacces- 



200 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

sible to the sailor. Wondrous old doors^ barred and 
bolted in dingy bulk-heads^ must have opened into 
regions full of interest to a successful explorer. 

They looked like the gloomy entrances to family 
vaults of buried dead ; and when I chanced to see some 
unknown functionary insert his key^ and enter these 
inexplicable apartments with a battle-lantern^ as if on 
solemn official business^ I almost quaked to dive in with 
him^ and satisfy myself whether these vaults indeed 
contained the mouldering relics of by-gone old Commo- 
dores and Post-captains. But the habitations of the 
living Commodore and Captain — ^their spacious and 
curtained cabins — ^were themselves almost as sealed 
volumes^ and I passed them in hopeless wonderment^ 
like a peasant before a prince's palace. Night and day 
armed sentries guarded their sacred portals, cutlass in 
hand; and had I dared to cross their path, I would 
infallibly have been cut down, as if in battle. Thus, 
though for a period of more than a year I was an in* 
mate of this floating box of live-oak, yet there were num- 
berless things in it that, to the last, remained wrapped 
in obscurity, or concerning which I could only lose 
myself in vague speculations* I was as a Boman Jew 
of the Middle Ages, confined to the Jews' quarter of 
the town, and forbidden to stray beyond my limits. Or 
I was as a modem traveller in the same famous city, 
forced to quit it at last without gaining ingress to the 
most mysterious haunts— the innermost shrine of the 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 201 

Vage^ and the dungeons and cells of the Inqui- 
sition. 

But among all the persons and things on board that 
puzzled me^ and filled me most with strange emotions 
of doubt^ misgivings, and mystery, was the Gunner, 
— ^a short, square, grim man, his hair and beard grizzled 
and singed, as if with gunpowder. His skin was of 
a flecky brown, like the stained barrel of a fowling-piece, 
and his hollow eyes burned in his head like blue-lights. 
He it was who had access to many of those mysterious 
vaults I have spoken of. Often he might be seen 
groping his way into them, followed by his subalterns, 
the old quarter-gunners, as if intent upon laying a train 
of powder to blow up the ship. I remembered Guy 
Fawkes and the Parliament-house, and made earnest 
inquiry whether this gunner was a Roman Catholic. 
I felt relieved when informed that he was not. 

A little circumstance which one of his mates once 
told me heightened the gloomy interest with which 
I regarded his chief. He told me that, at periodical 
intervals, his master the Gunner, accompanied by his 
phalanx, entered into the great Magazine under the 
Qxm-room, of which he had sole custody, and kept 
the key, nearly as big as the key of the Bastile, and 
provided with lanterns, something like Sir Humphrey 
Davy's Safety-lamp for coal -mines, proceeded to turn, 
end for end, all the kegs of powder, and packages of 
cartridges stored in this innermost explosive vault, lined 

k8 



202 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

throughout with sheets of copper. In the vestibule of 
the Magazine^ against the panellings were several pegs 
for slippers^ and^ before penetrating further than that 
vestibule, every man of the gunner's-gang silently re- 
moved his shoes, for fear that the nails in their heels 
might possibly create a spark, by striking against the 
coppered floor within. Then, with slippered feet, and 
with hushed whispers, they stole into the heart of the 
place. 

* This turning of the powder was to preserve its in- 
flammability. And surely it was a business fiill of 
direful interest, to be buried so deep below the son, 
handhng whole barrels of powder, any one of which, 
touched by the smallest spark, was powerful enough to 
blow up a whole street of warehouses. 

The gunner went by the name of Old Cambustiblesi 
though I thought this an undignified name for so 
momentous a personage, who had aU our Uves in his 
hand. 

While we lay in Callao, we received from shore seve- 
ral barrels of powder. So soon as the launch came 
alongside with them, orders were given to extinguish 
all lights and all fires in the ship; and the master-at- 
arms and his corporals inspected every deck, to see that 
this order was obeyed; a very prudent precaution, no 
doubt, but not observed at all in the Turkish navy. 
The Turkish sailors will sit on their gun-carriages tran- 
quilly smoking, while kegs of powder are being rolled 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAJft. 203 

under their ignited pipe-bowls. This shows the great 
comfort there is in the doctrine of these Fatalists^ and 
how such a doctrine^ in some things at leasts relieves 
men from nervous anxieties. But we are all Fatalists 
at bottom. Nor need we so much marvel at the heroism 
of that army oflSicer, who challenged his personal foe to 
bestride a barrel of powder with him — the match to be 
placed between them — and be blown up in good com- 
pany, for it is pretty certain that the whole earth itself 
is a vast hogshead, fiill of inflammable materials, and 
which we are always bestriding ; at the same time, that 
all good Christians believe that at any minute the last 
day may come, and the terrible combustion of the 
entire planet ensue. 

As if impressed with a befitting sense of the awful- 
ness of his calling, our gunner always wore a fixed 
expression of solemnity, which was heightened by his 
grizzled hair and beard. But what imparted such 
a sinister look to him, and what wrought so upon my 
imagination concerning this man, was a frightful scar 
crossing his left cheek and forehead. He had been 
almost mortally wounded, they said, with a sabre-cut, 
during a frigate engagement in the last war with 
Britain. 

He was the most methodical, exact, and punctual of 
all the forward officers. Among his other duties, it 
pertained to him, while in harbour, to see that at a cer- 
tain hour in the evening one of the great guns was 



204 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

discharged from the forecastle, a ceremony only observed 
in a flag-ship. And always at the precise moment you 
might behold him blowing his match, then applying it; 
and with that booming thunder in his ear, and the 
smell of the powder in his hair, he retired to his 
hammock for the night. What dreams he must 
have had! 

The same precision was observed when ordered to 
fire a gun to bring to some ship at sea; for, true to 
their name, and preserving its applicability, even in 
times of peace, all men-of-war are great bullies on the 
high seas. They domineer over the poor merchantmen, 
and with a hissing hot ball sent bowUng across the 
ocean, compel them to stop their headway at pleasure. 

It was enough to make you a man of method for life, 
to see the gunner superintending his subalterns, when 
preparing the main-deck batteries for a great national 
salute. While lying in harbour, intelligence reached 
us of the lamentable casualty that befell certain high 
officers of state, including the acting Secretary of the 
Navy himself, some other member of the President's 
cabinet, a Commodore, and others, all engaged in expe- 
rimenting upon a new-fangled engine of war. At the 
same time with the receipt of this sad news, orders 
arrived to fire minute-guns for the deceased head of the 
naval department. Upon this occasion the gunner was 
more than usually ceremonious, in seeing that the long 
twenty-fours were thoroughly loaded and rammed down. 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 205 

and then accurately marked with chalky so as to be 
discharged in imdeviating rotation, first &om the lar- 
board side, and then from the starboard. 

Bat as my ears hummed, and all my bones danced in 
me with the reverberating din, and my eyes and nos- 
trils were almost suiBTocated with the smoke, and when 
Isaw this grim old gunner firing awy so solemnly, 
I thought it a strange mode of honouring a man^s 
memory who had himself been slaughtered by a cannon. 
Only the smoke, that, after rolling in at the port-holes, 
rapidly drifted away to leeward, and was lost to view, 
seemed truly emblematical touching the personage thus 
honoured, since that great non-combatant, the Bible, 
assures us that our life is but a vapour, that quickly 
passeth away. 



206 WHITE- JACKET; OE, 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



A DISH OF DUNDERFUKK. 



In men-of-war, the space on the uppermost deck, 
round about the main-mast, is the Police-office, Court- 
house, and yard of execution, where all charges are 
lodged, causes tried, and punishment administered. In 
frigate phrase, to be brought up to the mast, is equiva- 
lent to being presented before the grand-jury, to see 
whether a true bill will be found against you. 

From the merciless, inquisitorial baiting which 
sailors, charged with offences, too often experience at the 
tuast, that vicinity is usually known among them as the 
bull-ring. 

The main-mast, moreover, is the only place where 
the sailor can hold formal communication with the cap- 
tain and officers. If any one has been robbed; if any 
one has been evilly entreated ; if any one^s character 
has been defamed ; if any one has a request to present ; 
if any one has aught important for the executive of the 
ship to know— straight to the main-mast he repairs ; and 
stands there— generally with his hat off— waiting the 
pleasure of the officer of the deck to advance and com- 
municate with him. Often, the most ludicrous scenes 
occur, and the most comical complaints are made. 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAB, 207 

One clear, cold morning, while we were yet running 
away from the Cape, a raw-boned, crack-pated Down 
Easter, belonging to the Waist, made his appearance at 
the mast, dolefuUy exhibiting a blackened tin pan, 
bearing a few crusty traces of some sort of a sea-pie, 
which had been cooked in it. 

'^Well, sir, what now?^' said the Lieutenant of the 
Deck, advancing. 

"They stole it, sir; all my nice dunderfwnky sir; they 
did, sir,^' whined the Down Easter, ruefully holding up 
his pan. 

" Stole your dundlefunk ! what^s that?^' 

^' Dunderjvnk, sir, dunderfunk; a cruel nice dish as 
ever man put into him.^^ 

" Speak out, sir ; what^s the matter ?^' 

" My dunderfunk, sir — as elegant a dish of dunder-- 
funk as you ever see, sir — ^they stole it, sir V 

" Go forward, you rascal \" cried the Lieutenant, in 
a towering rage, " or else stop your whining. Tell me, 
what's the matter ?^' 

" Why, sir, them ^ere two fellows. Dobs and Hodnose, 
stole my dunderfunk.^' 

"Once more, sir, I ask what that dundledunk is? 
Speak !^^ 

" As cruel a nice — '^ 

"Be off, sir! sheer !^* and muttering something 
about non compos mentis, the Lieutenant stalked away ; 
while the Down Easter beat a melancholy retreat. 






208 WHITE- JACKET; OR, 

holding up his pan like a tambourine^ and making 
dolorous music on it as he went. 

" Where are you going with that tear in your eye, 
like a travelling rat ?" cried a top-man. 

Oh ! he^s going home to Down East/^ said another; 

so far eastward, you know, shippy, that they have to 
pry up the sun with a handspike/^ 

To make this anecdote plainer, be it said that, at sea, 
the monotonous round of salt beef and pork at the 
messes of the sailors — ^where but very few of the varieties 
of the season are to be found — induces them to adopt 
many contrivances in order to diversify their meals. 
Hence the various sea-rolls, made dishes^ and Medi- 
terranean pies, weU known by man-of-war's-men- 
Scouse, Lobscouse, Soft-Tack, Soft-Tommy, SHUagdlee, 
Burgoo, Dough-boys, Lob-Dominion, Dog's-Body, and 
lastly, and least known, Dunderfunk ; all of which come 
under the general denomination of Manavalins. 

Dunderfunk is made of hard biscuit, hashed and 
pounded, mixed with beef fiat, molasses, and water, and 
baked brown in a pan. And to those who are beyond 
all reach of shore delicacies, this dunderfunk, in the 
feeling language of the Down Easter, is certainly 
" a cruel nice dish" 

Now the only way that a sailor, after preparing his 
dunderfunk, could get it cooked on board the Never- 
sink, was by sUly going to Old Coffee, the ship's cook, 
and bribing him to put it into his oven. And as some 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 209 

such dishes or other are well known to be all the time 
in the oven^ a set of unprincipled gourmands are con- 
stantly on the look-out for the chance of stealing them. 
G^nerally^ two or three league together^ and while one 
engages Old Coffee in some interesting conversation 
tonching his wife and femily at home, another snatches 
the first thing he can lay hands on in the oven^ and 
rapidly passes it to the third man^ who at his earliest 
leisure disappears with it. 

In this manner had the Down Easter lost his 
precious pie^ and afterward found the empty pan 
knocking about the forecastle. 



210 WHITE-JACKBT J OE, 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



A FLOQOIHO. 



If you begin the day with a laugh, you may, never- 
theless, end it with a sob and a sigh. 

Among the many who were exceedingly diverted 
with the scene between the Down Easter and the 
Lieutenant, none laughed more heartily than John, 
Peter, Mark, andAntone — ^four sailors of the starboard- 
watch. The same evening these four found themselves 
prisoners in the " brig,^^ with a sentry standing over 
them. They were charged with violating a well-known 
law of the ship — ^having been engaged in one of those 
tangled, general fights sometimes occurring among 
sailors. They had nothing to anticipate but a flogging 
at the Captain^s pleasure. 

Toward evening of the next day, they were startled 
by the dread summons of the boatswain and his mates 
at the principal hatchway — ^a summons that ever sends 
a shudder through every manly heart in a fidgate : 

'^ All hands witness punishmerU, ahoy I^' 

The hoarseness of the cry, its unrelenting prolonga- 
tion, its being caught up at different points, and sent 
through the lowermost depths of the ship; all this pro- 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK, 211 

duces a most dismal effect upon every heart not cal- 
loused by long liabituation to it. 

However much you may desire to absent yourself 
from the scene that ensues^ yet behold it you must ; 
or^ at leasts stand near it you must ; for the regulations 
enjoin the attendance of abnost the entire ship's com- 
pany^ from the corpulent Captain himself to the smallest 
boy who strikes the bell. 

" All hands tvitness punishment, ahoy I '* 
To the sensitive seaman that summons sounds like a 
doom. He knows that the same law which impels it — 
the same law by which the culprits of the day must 
suffer ; that by that very law he also is liable at any time 
to be judged and condemned. And the inevitableness 
of his own presence at the scene ; the strong arm that 
drags him in view of the scourge, and holds him there 
till aU is over ; forcing upon his loathing eye and soul 
the sufferings and groans of men who have familiarly 
consorted with him, eaten with him, battled out watches 
with him — ^men of his own type and badge — all this 
conveys a terrible hint of the omnipotent authority 
under which he lives. Indeed, to such a man the naval 
summons to witness punishment carries a thrill, some- 
what akin to what we may impute to the quick and 
the dead, when they shall hear the Last Trump, 
that is to bid them all arise in their ranks, and 
behold the final penalties inflicted upon the sinners of 
our race. 



212 WHITE-JACKET} OR, 

But it must not be imagined that to all man-of- 
war^s-men this summons conveys such poignant emo- 
tions ; but it is hard to decide whether one should be 
glad or sad that this is not the case ! whether it is 
grateful to know that so much pain is avoided^ or 
whether it is far sadder to think that^ either from 
constitutional hard-heartedness or the multiplied 
searings of habit, hundreds of mau-of-war^s-men have 
been made proof against the sense of degradation, pity, 
and shame. 

As if in sympathy with the scene to be enacted, the 
sun, which the day previous had merrily flashed upon 
the tin pan of the disconsolate Down Easter, was now 
setting over the dreary waters, veiling itself in vapours. 
The wind blew hoarsely in the cordage ; the seas broke 
heavily against the bows; and the fngate, staggering 
under whole top-sails, strained as if scourged on her 
way. 

" All hands witness punishment, ahoy !" 

At the summons the crew crowded round the 
main-mast ; multitudes eager to obtain a good place on 
the booms, to overlook the scene ; many laughing and 
chatting, others cauvassing the case of the culprits; 
some maintaining sad, anxious countenances, or carry- 
ing a suppressed indignation in their eyes; a few 
purposely keeping behind to avoid looking on ; in short, 

among five hundred men there was every possible 
shade of character. 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 218 

All the officers --midaliipmen included — stood toge- 
ther in a group on the starboard side of the maLn-mast ; 
the First Lieutenant in advance^ and the surgeon^ 
whose special duty it is to be present at such times^ 
standing dose by his side. 

Presently the Captain came forward from his cabin^ 
and stood in the centre of this solemn group^ with 
a small paper in his hand. That paper was the daily 
report of offences, regularly laid upon his table every 
morning or evening, like the day's journal placed by 
a bachelor's napkin at breakfast. 

" Master-at-arms, bring up the prisoners/' he said. 
A few moments elapsed, during which the Captain, 
now clothed in his most dreadAil attributes, fixed his 
eyes severely upon the crew, when suddenly a lane 
formed through the crowd of seamen, and the prisoners 
advanced — the master-at-arms, rattan in hand, on one 
side, and an armed marine on the other — and took up 
their stations at the mast. 

"You John, you Peter, you Mark, you Antone," 
said the Captain, "were yesterday found fighting on 
the gun-deck. Have you anything to say ?" 
■ Mark and Antone, two steady, middle-aged men, 
whom I had often admired for their sobriety, replied 
that they did not strike the first blow ; that they had 
submitted to much before they had yielded to their 
passions j but as they acknowledged that they had at 
last defended themselves, their excuse was overruled. 



214 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

John — ^a brutal bully, who, it seems, was tlie real 
author of the disturbance — ^was about entering into a 
long extenuation, when he was cut short by being 
made to confess, irrespective of circumstances, that he 
had been in the fray. 

Peter, a handsome lad about nineteen years old, 
belonging to the mizzen-top, looked pale and tremulous. 
He was a great favourite in his part of the ship, and 
especially in his own mess, principally composed of lads 
of his own age. That morning two of his young mess* 
mates had gone to his bag, taken out his best clothes, 
and, obtaining the permission of the marine sentry at 
the ^^brig,^' had handed them to him, to be put on 
against being summoned to the mast. This was done 
to propitiate the Captain, as most captains love to see 
a tidy sailor. But it would not do. To all his sup- 
plications the Captain turned a deaf ear. Peter declared 
that he had been struck twice before he had returned 
a blow. " No matter,^^ said the Captain, " you struck at 
last, instead of reporting the case to an officer. I allow 
no man to fight on board here but myself. / do the 
fighting." 

" Now, men,'' he added, '' you all admit the charge ; 
you know the penalty. Strip ! Quarter-masters, are 
the gratings rigged?'' 

The gratings are square frames of barred wood-work, 
sometimes placed over the hatch-ways. One of these 
squares was now laid on the deck, close to the ship's 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 215 

bulwarks^ and while the remainiug preparations were 
being made^ the master-at-arms assisted the prisoners 
in remoying their jackets and shirts. This done^ their 
shirts were loosely thrown over their shoulders. 

At a sign firom the Captain^ John^ with a shameless 
leer^ advanced^ and stood passively upon the gratings 
while the bare-headed old quarter-master^ with gray 
hair streaming in the wind^ bound his feet to the cross- 
bars^ andj stretching out his arms over his head^ 
secured them to the hammock-nettings above. He 
then retreated a little space^ standing silent. 

Meanwhile^ the boatswain stood solemnly on the 
other side^ with a green bag in his hand^ firom which 
taking four instroments of punishment^ he gave one to 
each of his mates; for a firesh " cat/^ applied by a fi?esh 
hand^ is the ceremonious privilege accorded to every 
man-of-war culprit. 

At another sign firom the Captain^ the master-at- 
arms^ stepping up^ removed the shirt firom the prisoner. 
At this juncture a wave broke against the ship's side^ 
and dashed the spray over his exposed back. But 
though the air was piercing cold, and the water 
drenched him, John stood still, without a shudder. 

The Captain's finger was now lifted, and the first 
boatswain's-mate advanced, combing out the nine tails 
of his cat with his hand, and then, sweeping them 
round his neck, brought them with the whole force of 
his body upon the mark. Again, and again, and 



216 WHITE-JACPIT J OB, 



again ; and at every blow, higher and higher rose the 

long^ purple bars on the prisoner's back. But he only 

bowed over his head^ and stood stiU. Meantime^ some 

of the crew whispered among themselves in applause of t 

their shipmate's nerve ; but the greater part were \ 

breathlessly silent as the keen scourge hissed through 

the wintry air, and feU with a cutting, wiry sonnd upon 

the mark. One dozen lashes being applied^ the man 

was taken down, and went among the crew with a 

smile, saying, ^^D — ^n me! it's nothing when you're 

used to it ! Who wants to fight ?" 

The next was Antone, the Portuguese. At every 
blow he surged from side to side, pouring out a torrent 
of involuntary blasphemies. Never before had he been 
heard to curse. When cut down, he went among the 
men, swearing to have the life of the Captain. Of 
course, this was unheard by the officers. 

Mark, the third prisoner, only cringed and coughed 
under his punishment. He had some pulmonary com- 
plaint. He was off duty for several days after the 
flogging ; but this was partly to be imputed to his 
extreme mental misery. It was his first scourging, and 
he felt the insult more than the injury. He became 
silent and sullen for the rest of the cruise. 

The fourth and last was Peter, the mizzen-top lad. 
He had often boasted that he had never been degraded 
at the gang-way. The day before his cheek had worn 
its usual red, but now no ghost was whiter. As he was 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 217 

being secured to the gratings^ and the shndderings and 
creepings of his dazzlingly white back were revealed, 
he turned round his head imploringly; but his weeping 
entreaties and vows of contrition were of no avail. 
*' I would not forgive God Almighty ! " cried the Cap- 
tain. The fourth boatswain's-mate advanced^ and at 
the first blow, the boy, shouting, ^^ My God ! Oh ! my 
irod ! " writhed and leaped so as to displace the 
gratings, and scatter the nine tails of the scourge all 
over his person. At the next blow he howled, leaped, 
and raged in unendurable torture. 

*'What are you stopping for, boatswain's-mate ? " 
cried the Captain. " Lay on ! '^ and the whole dozen 
was applied. 

''I don't care what happens to me now!'' wept 
Peter, going among the crew, with blood-shot eyes, as 
he put on his shirt. " I have been flogged once, and 
they may do it again if they will. Let them look out 
for me now I" 

^^Kpe down!" cried the Captain; and the crew 
slowly dispersed. 



VOL. I. 



218 WHITE-JACKST j OB, 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

80KB or THX XYIL XVnCTS OW VLOGOIKO. 

Thebe are incideiital considerations toucliing this 
matter of floggings whicli exaggerate the evil into 
a great enormity. Many illustrations might be given^ 
but let us be content with a few. 

One of the arguments advanced by officers of the 
Navy in favour of corporal punishment is this : it can 
be inflicted in a moment; it consumes no valuable 
time; and when the prisoner's shirt is put on^ thai is 
the last of it. Whereas^ if another punishment were 
substituted^ it would probably occasion a great waste of 
time and trouble^ besides thereby begetting in the 
saQor an undue idea of his importance. 

Absurd^ or worse than absurd^ as it may appear^ all 
this is true ; and if you start from the same premises 
with these officers^ you must admit that they advance 
an irresistible argument. But in accordance with this 
principle^ captains in the Navy^ to a certain extent^ 
inflict the scourge — ^which is ever at hand — ^for nearly 
all degrees of transgression. In offences not cognizable 
by a court martial^ little if any discrimination is shown. 
It is of a piece with the penal laws that prevailed in 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 219 

England some sixty years ago, when one hundred and 
sixty dififerent offences were declared by the statute- 
book to be capital, and the servant-maid who but 
pilfered a watch was hung beside the murderer of 
a family. 

It is one of the most common punishments for very 
trivial offences in the Navy, to " stop- a seaman's ffrog 
for a day or a week. And as most seamen so cling to 
their grogy the loss of it is generally deemed by them 
a very serious penalty. You will sometimes hear them 
say, '^ I would rather have my wind stopped than my 
grog P' 

But there are some sober seamen that would much 
rather draw the money for it, instead of the grog itself, 
as provided by law ; but they are too often deterred 
irom this by the thought of receiving a scourging 
for some inconsiderable offence, as a substitute for 
the stopping of their spirits. This is a most serious 
obstacle to the cause of temperance in the Navy. But, 
iu many cases, even the reluctant drawing of his grog 
cannot exempt a prudent seaman from ignominy ; for 
besides the formal administering of the ^^ caV' at the 
gangway for petty offences, he is liable to the " colt," 
or rope's-end, a bit of ratlin-stvff, indiscriminately 
appUed— without stripping the victim— at any time, 
and in any part of the ship, at the merest wink from 
the Captain. By an express order of that officer, most 
boatswain's mates carry the ^^ colt" coiled in their hats, 

l2 



220 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

in readiness to be administered at a minute's warning 
upon any offender. This was the custom in the Never- 
sink. And until so recent a period as the adminis- 
tration of President Polk, when the historian Bancroft, 
Secretary of the Navy, officially interposed, it was an 
almost universal thing for the officers of the watch, 
at their own discretion, to inflict chastisement upon 
a sailor, and this, too, in the face of the ordinance 
restricting the power of flogging solely to Captains and 
Courts Martial. Nor was it a thing imknown for a 
Lieutenant, in a sudden outburst of passion, perhaps 
inflamed by brandy, or smarting under the sense of 
being disliked or hated by the seamen, to order a whole 
watch of two hundred and fifty men, at dead of night, 
to undergo the indignity of the ^^ colt." 

It is believed that, even at the present day, there are 
instances of Commanders still violating the law, by 
delegating the power of the colt to subordinates. At 
all events, it is certain that, almost to a man, the 
Lieutenants in the Navy bitterly rail against the 
officiousness of Bancroft, in so materially abridging 
their usurped functions by snatching the colt from 
their hands. At the time, they predicted that this 
rash and most ill-judged interference of the Secretary 
would end in the breaking up of all discipline in the 
Navy. But it has not so proved. These officers fww 
predict that, if the '^ caf be abolished, the same 
unfulfilled prediction would be verified. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-QF-WAR. 321 

Concerning the license with which many Captains 
violate the express laws laid down by Congress for 
the government of the Navy, a glaring instance may be 
quoted. For upwards of forty years there has been on 
the American Statute-book a law. prohibiting a Captain 
from inflicting, on his own authority, more than twelve 
lashes at one time, and for one offence. If more are tq 
be given, the sentence must be passed by a Court 
Martial Yet, for nearly half a century, this law has 
been firequently, and with almost perfect impunity, set 
at nought : though of late, through the exertions of 
Bancroft and others, it has been much better observed 
than formerly ; indeed, at the present day it is generally 
respected. Still, while the Neversink was lying in 
a South American port, on the cruise now written of, 
the seamen belonging to another American frigate 
informed us that their Captain sometimes inflicted, upon 
his own authority, eighteen and twenty lashes. It is 
worth while to state that this frigate was vastly ad- 
mired by the shore ladies for her wonderfully neat 
appearance. One of her forecastle-men told me that 
he had worn out three jack-knives (charged to him on 
the books of the purser) in scraping the belaying-pins 
and the combings of the hatchways. 

It is singular that while the Lieutenants of the Watch 
in American men-of-war so long usurped the power of 
inflicting corporal punishment with the coU, few or no 
similar abuses were known in the English Navy. And 



222 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

though the Captain of an English armed ship is antho- 
rized to inflict^ at his own discretion^ more than a dozen 
lashes (I think three dozen)^ yet it is to be doubted 
whether, upon the whole, there is as much flogging at 
present in the English Navy as in the American. The 
ichivalric Virginian, John Randolph of Boanoke, de- 
clared, in his place in Congress, that on board of the 
American man-of-war that carried him out Ambassador 
to Russia he had witnessed more flogging than had 
taken place on his own plantation of five hundred 
African slaves in ten years. Certain it is, from what I 
have personally seen, that the English officers, as 
a general thing, seem to be less disliked by their crews 
than the American officers by theirs. The reason pro- 
bably is, that many of them, from their station in life, 
have been more accustomed to social command; hence, 
quarter-deck authority sits more naturally on them. A 
coarse, vulgar man, who happens to rise to high naval 
rank by the exHbition of talents not incompatible 
with vulgarity, invariably proves a tyrant to his crew. 
It is a thing that American man-of-war's-men have 
often observed, that the Lieutenants from the Southern 
States, the descendants of the old Virginians, are much 
less severe, and much more gentle and gentlemanly in 
command, than the Northern officers, as a class. 

According to the present laws and usages oS the 
Navy, a seaman, for the most trivial alleged offences, of 
which he may be entirely innocent, must, without 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 228 

a t^Asi, undergo a penalty tlie traces whereof he carries 
to the grave ; for to a man-of-war's-man's experienced 
eye the marks of a naval seoni^ing with the ^* cat'^ are 
through hfe discernible. And with these marks on his 
back^ this image of his Creator must rise at the Last 
Day. Yet so untouchable is true dignity, that there are 
cases wherein to be flogged at the gangway is no dis* 
honour ; though, to abase and hurl down the last pride 
of some sailor who has piqued him, be sometimes the 
secret motive, with some malicious officer, in procuring 
him to be condemned to the lash. But this feeling of 
the innate dignity remaining untouched^ thoi^h out- 
wardly the body be scarred for the whole term of the 
natural life, is one of the hushed things, buried among 
^he holiest privacies of the soul; a thing between 
a man^s God and himself; and for ever undiscemible by 
our fellow-men, who account that a degradation which 
seems so to the corporal eye. But what torments must 
that seaman undergo, who, while his back bleeds at the 
gangway, bleeds agonized drops of shame from his soul ! 
Are we not justified in immeasurably denouncing this 
thing? Join hands with me, then; and in the name 
of that Being, in whose image the flogged sailor is 
made, let us demand of Legislators, by what right they 
dare profane what God himself accounts sacred. 

Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is 
a Roman ? asks the intrepid Apostle, well knowing, as 
a Roman citizen, that it was not. And now, eighteen 



224 "WHITE- JACKET; OR, 

hundred years after, is it lawful for you, my country, 
men, to scourge a man that is an American? — ^to 
scourge him round the world in your Mgates ? 

It is to no purpose that you apologetically appeal to 
the general depravity of the man-of-war^s-man. De- 
pravity in the oppressed is no apology for the oppre9Sor ; 
but rather an additional stigma to him, as being, in 
a large degree, the effect, and not the cause and justifi- 
cation of oppression. 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 225 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



FLOGOIV0 VOX LAWFUL. 



'i 



But it is next to idle^ at the present day, merely to 
denounce an iniquity. Be ours, then, a different task. 

If there are any three things opposed to the genius 
of the American Constitution, they are these : irrespon- 
sibihty in a judge, unlimited discretionary authority in 
an executive, and the union of an irresponsible judge 
and an unlimited executive in one person. 

Yet by virtue of an enactment of Congress, all the 
Commodores in the American Navy are obnoxious to 
these three charges, so far as concerns the punishment 
of the sailor for alleged misdemeanours not particularly 
set forth in the Articles of War. 

Here is the enactment in question. 

XXXII. Of the Articles of War, — " All crimes com- 
mitted by persons belonging to the Navy, which are not 
specified in the foregoing articles, shall be punished 
according to the laws and customs in such cases at 



sea.^^ 



This is the article that, above all others, puts the 
scourge into the hands of the Captain, calls him to no 
account fox its exercise, and furnishes him with an 

l3 



226 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

ample warrant for inflictions of cruelty upon the com- 
inon sailor^ hardly credible to landsmen. 

By this article the Captain is made a legislator^ as 
well as a judge and an executive. So fjEtr as it goesj it 
absolutely leaves to his discretion to decide what things 
shall be considered crimes^ and what shall be the 
penalty; whether an accused person has been guilty 
of actions by him declared to be crimes; and how^ 
wheuj and where the penalty shall be inflicted. 

In the American Navy there is an everlasting sus- 
pension of the Habeas Corpus. Upon the bare alle^ 
gation of misconduct^ there is no law to restrain the 
Captain from imprisoning a seaman^ and keeping him 
confined at his pleasure. While I was in the Neversink^ 
the Captain of an American sloop-of-war, from un- 
doubted motives of personal pique^ kept a seaman con- 
fined in the brig for upwards of a month. 

Certainly the necessities of navies warrant a code for 
its government more stringent than the law that governs 
the land ; but that code should conform to the spirit of 
the political institutions of the country that ordains it. 
Jt should not convert into slaves some of the citizens 
of a nation of freemen. Such objections cannot be 
urged against the laws of the Russian Navy (not essen- 
tially different from our own)^ because the laws of that 
Navy^ creating the absolute one-man power in the 
Captain^ and vesting in him the authority to scourge^ 
conform in spirit to the territorial laws of Russia, which 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 227 

is rnled by an autocrat^ and whose courts inflict tlie 
knout npon the subjects of the land. But with us it is 
different. Our institutions claim to be based upon 
broad principles of political liberty and equality. 
Whereas, it would hardly affect one iota the condition 
on shipboard of an American man-of-war's-man, were 
he transferred to the Russian Navy and made a subject 
of the Czar. 

As a sailor, he shares none of our civil immunities ; 
the law of our soil in no respect accompanies the national 
floating timbers grown thereon, and to which he clings 
as his home. For him our Bevolution was in vain; to 
him our Declaration of Independence is a lie. 

It is not sufficiently borne in mind, perhaps, that 
though the naval code comes under the head of the 
martial law, yet, in time of peace, and in the thousand 
questions arising between man and man on board ship, 
this code, to a certain extent, may not improperly be 
deemed municipal. With its crew of 800 or 1,000 
men, a three-decker is a city on the sea. But in most 
of these matters between man and man, the Captain, 
instead of being a magistrate, dispensing what the law 
promulgates, is an absolute ruler, making and unmaking 
law as he pleases. 

It will be seen that the XXth of the Articles of War 
provides, that if any person in the Navy negligently 
perform the duties assigned him, he shall suffer such 
punishment as a court martial shall adjudge ; but if the 



228 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

offender be a private (commpu sailor)^ he may^ at the 
discretion of the Captain^ be put in irons or flogged. It 
is needless to say^ that in cases where an officer commits 
a trivial violation of this law^ a court martial is sdidom 
or never called to sit upon his trial; but in the sailor's 
case^ he is at once condemned to the lash. Thus, one 
set of sea-citizens is exempted from a law that is hung 
in terror over others. What would landsmen think, 
were the State of New York to pass a law against some 
offence, affixing a fine as a penalty, and then add to 
that law a section restricting its penal operation to 
mechanics and day labourers, exempting all gentlemen 
with an income of one thousand dollars ? Yet thus, in 
the spirit of its practical operation, even thus, stands 
a good part of the naval laws wherein naval flogging is 
involved. 

But a law should be ^^ universal,'^ and include in its 
possible penal operations the very judge himself who 
gives decisions upon it; nay, the very judge who ex- 
pounds it. Had Sir WiUiam Blackstone violated the 
laws of England, he would have been brought before 
the bar over which he had presided, and would there 
have been tried, with the counsel for the crown reading 
to him, perhaps, from a copy of his own Commentaries. 
And should he have been found guilty, he would have 
suffered like the meanest subject, '^ according to law.'' 

How is it in an American frigate ? Let one example 
suffice. By the Articles of War, and especially by 



THE WOfiLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 229 

Artide I.^ aa American Captain may, and firequently 
does, inflict a severe and degrading punishment upon 
a sailor, while he himself is for ever removed from the 
possibility of undergoing the like disgrace; and, in all 
probability, from undergoing any punishment whatever, 
even if guilty of the same thing — contention with his 
equals, for instance — for which he punishes another. 
Yet both sailor and captain are American citizens. 

Now, in the language of a great lawyer, there is 
a law, '' coeval with mankind, dictated by God himself, 
superior in obligation to any other, and no human laws 
are of any validity if contrary to this.^' That law is 
the Law of Nature ; among the three great principles of 
which Justinian includes '^ that to every man should be 
rendered his i.\xe" But we have seen that the laws 
involving flogging in the Navy do not render to every 
man his due, since in some cases they indirectly exclude 
the officers from any punishment whatever, and in all 
cases protect them from the scourge, which is inflicted 
upon the saQor. Therefore, according to Blackstone 
and Justinian, those laws have no binding force ; and 
every American man-of-wax's-man would be morally 
justified in resisting the scourge to the uttermost ; and, 
in so resisting, would be religiously justified in what 
would be judicially styled "the act of mutiny*' 
itself. 

If, then, these scourgiag laws be for any reason ne- 
cessary, make them binding upon all who of right come 



m^mrmm^mmmm 



230 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

mider their sway; and let us see an honest Commodore^ 
duly authorized by Congress^ condemning to the lash 
a transgressing Captain by the side of a transgressing 
sailor. And if the Commodore himself prove a trans- 
gressor, let us see one of his brother Commodores take 
up the lash against him, even as the boatswain's mates, 
the navy executioners, are often called upon to scourge 
each other. 

Or will you say that a navy officer is a man, but that 
an American-bom citizen, whose grandsire may have 
ennobled him by pouring out his blood at Bunker Hill — 
will you say that, by entering the service of his country 
as a common seaman, and standing ready to fight her 
foes, he thereby loses his manhood at the very time he 
most asserts it ? Will you say that, by so doing, he 
degrades himself to the liability of the scourge, but if 
he tarries ashore in the time of danger, he is safe 
from that indignity? All our linked states, all four 
continents of mankind, unite in denouncing such 
a thought. 

We plant the question, then, on the topmost argu- 
ment of all. Irrespective of incidental considerations^ 
we assert that flogging in the navy is opposed to the 
essential dignity of man, which no legislator has a right 
to violate ; that it is oppressive, and glaringly unequal 
in its operations; that it is utterly repugnant to the 
spirit of our democratic institutions; indeed, that 
it involves a lingering trait of the worst times of a 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 231 

barbarous feudal aristocracy ; in a word^ we denounce it 
as religiously^ morally^ and immutably Monmg. 

No matter^ then^ what may be the consequences of 
its abolition ; no matter if we have to dismantle our 
fleets, and our unprotected commerce should fall a prey 
to the spoiler, the awful admonitions of justice and 
humanity demand that abolition without procrastina- 
tion; in a Toice that is not to be mistaken, demand 
that abolition to-day. It is not a doUar-and-cent ques- 
tion of expediency ; it is a matter of right and wrong. 
And if any man can lay his hand on his heart, and 
solemnly say that this scourging is right, let that man 
but once feel the lash on his own back, and in his 
agony you will hear the apostate call the seventh 
heavens to witness that it is wrong. And, in the name 
of immortal manhood, would to Grod that every man 
who upholds this thing were scourged at the gangway 
till he recanted ! 



232 WHUE-JACXET ; OB, 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

IS VLoaaiKa keobssabtI 

But White- Jacket is ready to come down from the 
lofty mast-head of aa eternal principle, and fight you — 
Commodores and Captains of the navy— on your own 
quarter-deck, with your own weapons, at your own 
paces. 

Exempt yourselves from the lash, you take Bible 
oaths to it that it is indispensable for others; you 
swear that, without the lash, no armed ship can be 
kept in suitable discipline. Be it proved to you, 
officers, and stamped upon your foreheads, that herein 
you are utterly wrong. 

'' Send them to CoUingwood,^* said Lord Nelson, 
"and he will bring them to order.'' This was the 
language of that renowned Admiral, when his officers 
reported to him certain seamen of the fleet as wholly 
ungovernable. " Send them to Collingwood.'' And 
who was Collingwood, that, after these navy rebels had 
been imprisoned and scourged without being brought 
to order, Collingwood could convert them to docility ? 

Who Admiral Collingwood was, as an historical hero. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 233 

history herself will tell you ; nor, in whatever triumphal 
hall they may be hangings will the captured flags of 
Trafalgar fail to rustle at the mention of that name. 
But what Collingwood was as a disciplinarian on board 
the ships he commanded perhaps needs to be said. He 
was an officer^ then^ who held in abhorrence all corporal 
punishment; who, though seeing more active service 
than any sea-officer of his time, yet, for years together, 
governed his men without inflicting the lash. 

But these seamen of his must have been most ex- 
emplary saints, to have proved docile under so lenient 
a sway. "Were they saints? Answer, ye gaols and 
alms-houses throughout the length and breadth of 
Great Britain, which, in Collingwood^s time, were swept 
clean of the last lingering villain and pauper to man his 
majesty^s fleets. 

Still more, that was a period when the uttermost 
resources of England were taxed to the quick; when 
the masts of her multiplied fleets almost transplanted 
her forests, all standing, to the sea; when British press- 
gangs not only boarded foreign ships on the high seas, 
and boarded foreign pier-heads, but boarded their own 
merchantmen at the mouth of the Thames, and boarded 
the very firesides along its banks; when Englishmen 
were knocked down and dragged into the navy, like 
cattle into the slaughter-house, with every mortal pro- 
vocation to a mad desperation against the service that 
thus ran their unwilling heads into the muzzles of the 



234 WHITE- JACKET; OB, 

euemy^s cannon. TTiis was the time^ and these the men 
that Collingwood governed without the lash. 

I know it has been said that Lord Collii^wood began 
by inflicting severe punishments^ and afterwards ruling 
his sailors by the mere memory of a by-gone terror, 
which he could at pleasure revive ; and that his sailors 
knew this, and hence their good behaviour under 
a lenient sway. But, granting the quoted assertion to 
be true, how comes it that many American Captains, 
who, after inflicting as severe punishment as ever 
Collingwood could have authorized — how comes it that 
they, also, have not been able to maintain good order 
without subsequent floggings, after once showing to the 
crew with what terrible attributes they were invested ? 
But it is notorious, and a thing that I myself, in several 
instances, know to have been the case, that in the 
American navy, where corporal punishment has been 
most severe, it has also been most frequent. 

But it is incredible that, with such crews as Lord 
CoUingwood's— composed, in part, of the most desperate 
characters, the rakings of the gaols — ^it is incredible that 
such a set of men could have been governed by the 
mere memory of the lash. Some other influence must 
have been brought to bear; mainly, no doubt, the 
influence wrought by a powerful brain, and a deter- 
mined, intrepid spirit over a miscellaneous rabble. 

It is well known that Lord Nelson himself, in point 
of poUcy, was averse to flogging ; and that, too, when 



THE M'OBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 285 

he liad witnessed the mutinous effects of goyemment 
abuses in the navy — ^unknown in our times — and which^ 
to the terror of all England^ developed themselves at 
the great mutiny of the Nore : an outbreak that for 
several weeks jeopardized the very existence of the 
British navy. 

But we may press this thing nearly two centuries 
further back, for it is a matter of historical doubt 
whether, in Robert Blake's time, Cromwell's great 
admiral, such a thing as flogging was known at the 
gangways of his victorious fleets. And as in this matter 
we cannot go further back than to Blake, so we cannot 
advance further than to our own time, which shows 
Commodore Stockton, during the recent war with 
Mexico, governing the American squadron in the Pacific 
without employing the scourge. 

But if of three famous English Admirals one has 
abhorred flogging, another almost governed his ships 
without it, and to the third it may be supposed to have 
been unknown, while an American Commander has, 
within the present year almost, been enabled to sustain 
the good discipline of an entire squadron in time of war 
without having an instrument of scourging on board, 
what inevitable inferences must be drawn, and how 
disastrous to the mental character of all advocates of 
navy flogging, who may happen to be navy officers 
themselves ! 

It cannot have escaped the discernment of any 
observer of mankind, that, in the presence of its con- 



236 WHITE-JACKET; OK, 

ventional inferiors, conscious imbecility in power often 
seeks to carry off that imbecility by assumptions of 
lordly severity. The amount of flogging on board an 
American man-of-war is^ in many cases, in exact pror 
portion to the professional and intellectual incapacity 
of her ofl&cers to command. Thus, in these cases, the 
law that authorizes flogging does but put a scourge into 
the hand of a fool. In most calamitous instances this 
has been shown. 

It is a matter of record, that some English ships of 
war have fallen a prey to the enemy through the insub- 
ordination of the crew, induced by the witless cruelty 
of their officers ; officers so armed by the law that they 
could inflict that cruelty without restraint. Nor have 
there been wanting instances where the seamen have 
ran away with their ships, as in the case of the Her-s 
mione and Danae, and for ever rid themselves of the 
outrageous inflictions of their officers by sacrificing 
their lives to their fiiry. 

Events like these aroused the attention of the British 
public at the time. But it was a tender theme, th^ 
public agitation of which the government was anxious 
to suppress. Nevertheless, whenever the thing was 
privately discussed, these terrific mutinies, together 
with the then prevailing insubordination of the men in 
the navy, were almost universally attributed to the 
exasperating system of flogging. And the necessity 
for flogging was generally believed to be directly refer- 
able to the impressment of such crowds of dissati8fie4 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 237 

men. And in high quarters it was held that if^ by any 
mode^ the English fleet could be manned without 
recourse to coercive measures^ then the necessity of 
flogging would cease. 

'* If we abolish either impressment or floggings the 
abolition of the other will follow as a matter of course.'' 
This was the language of the Edinburgh Review at 
a still later period^ 1824. 

If, then, the necessity of flogging in the British 
armed marine was solely attributed to the impressment 
of the seamen, what faintest shadow of reason is there 
for the continuance of this barbarity in the American 
service, which is wholly free from the reproach of 
impressment. 

^ It is true that, during a long period of non-impress- 
ment, and even down to the present day, flogging has 
been, and still is, the law of the English navy. But in 
things of this kind England should be nothing to us, 
except an example to be shunned. Nor should wise 
legislators wholly govern themselves by precedents, 
and conclude that, since scourging has so long pre- 
vailed, some virtue must reside in it. Not so. The 
world has arrived at a period which renders it the part 
of Wisdom to pay homage to the prospective precedents 
of the Future, in preference to those of the Past. The 
Past is dead, and has no resurrection ; but the Future 
is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in 
anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of 



233 white-jacket; ob, 

mankind ; the Future is^ in all things^ our friend. In 
the Past is no hope; the Future is both hope and 
fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the 
Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely 
governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife^ crystallized 
in the act of looking backward^ and for ever incapable 
of looking before. 

Let us leave the Past^ then^ to dictate laws to im- 
movable China; let us abandon it to the Chinese 
Legitimists of Europe. But for us^ we will have another 
captain to rule over us — ^that captain who ever marches 
at the head of his troop, and beckons them forward^ not 
lingering in the rear, and impeding their march with 
limibering baggage-wagons of old precedents. This is 
the Past. 

But in many things we Americans are driven to 
a rejection of the maxims of the Past, seeing that, ere 
long, the van of the nations must, of right, belong to 
ourselves. There are occasions when it is for America 
to make precedents, and not to obey them. We 
should, if possible, prove a teacher to posterity, instead 
of being the pupil of by-gone generations. More shall 
come after us than have gone before; the world is not 
yet middle-aged. ^ 

Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel of old did 
not follow after the ways of the Egyptians. To her was 
given an express dispensation; to her were given new 
things under the sun. And we Americans are the 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 239 

peculiar, chosen people — ^the Israel of our time ; we bear 
the ark of the liberties of the world. Seventy years 
ago we escaped from thrall; and, besides our first birth- 
right — embracing one continent of earth — God has 
given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains 
of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down 
imder the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being 
lifted. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great 
things firom our race ; and great things we feel in our 
souls. We are the pioneers of the world; the advance- 
guard, sent on through the wilderness of imtried things, 
to break a new path in the New World that is ours. In 
our youth is our strength; in our inexperience our 
wisdom. At a period when other nations^ have but 
lisped, our deep voice is heard afar. Long enough have 
we been sceptics with regard to ourselves, and doubted 
whether, indeed, the pohtical Messiah had come. But 
he has come iaus,ifwe would but give utterance to his 
promptings. And let us always remember, that with 
ourselves — almost for the first time in the history of 
earth — ^national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy ; 
for we cannot do a good to America, but we give alms 
to the world. 



240 WUITE-JACEET } OB, 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

SOMB SUPEBIOB OLD " LOITDOK DOOK " FBOM THE WHnS-OOOLBBS OF KEPTUKV. 

We had just slid into pleasant weather, drawing near 
to the Tropics, when all hands were thrown into a won- 
derful excitement by an event that eloquently appealed 
to many palates. 

A man at the fore-top-sail-yard sung out that there 
were eight or ten dark objects floating on the sea, some 
three points off our lee-bow. 

'' Keep her off three points 1'* cried Captain Claret, 
to the quarter-master of the cun. 

And thus, with all our batteries, store-rooms, and five 
hundred men, with their baggage, and beds, and pro- 
visions, at one move of a round bit of mahogany, our 
great embattled-ark edged away for the strangers, as 
easily as a boy turns to the right or left in pursuit of 
insects in the field. 

Directly the man on the top-sail-yard reported the 
dark objects to be hogsheads. Instantly all the top- 
men were straining their eyes, in delirious expec- 
tation of having their long ffrog-fast broken at last, and 
that, too, by what seemed an almost miraculous inter- 
vention. It was a curious circumstance that, without 



j 
THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 241 i 

knowing the contents of the hogsheads^ they yet seemed 
certain that the staves encompassed the thing they 
longed for. 

Sail was now shortened^ our headway was stopped, 
and a cntter was lowered, with orders to tow the fleet 
of stemgers alongside. The men sprai^ to their oars 
with a will, and soon five goodly puncheons lay wallow- 
ing in the sea, just nnder the main chains. We got 
overboard the slings, and hoisted them out of the 
water. 

It was a sight that Bacchus and his Bacchanals would 
have gloated over. Each puncheon was of a deep-green 
colour, so covered with minute barnacles and shell-fish, 
and streaming with sea-weed, that it needed long 
searching to find out their bung-holes; they looked 
like venerable old loggerhead-turtles. How long they 
had been tossing about, and making voyages for the 
benefit of the flavour of their contents, no one could 
tell. In trying to raft them ashore, or on board of 
some merchant-ship, they must have drifted off to sea. 
This we inferred from ropes that lengthwise united 
them, and which from one point of view made them 
resemble a section of a sea-serpent. They were strtick 
into the gun-deck, where the eager crowd being kept 
off by sentries, the cooper was called with his tools. 

" Bung up, and bilge free V he cried, in an ecsta&y, 
flourishing his driver and hammer. 

Upon clearing away the barnacles and moss, a flat 

VOL, L M 



242 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

sort of sheU-fish was foimd^ closely adhering, like 
a California-shell, right over one of the Dungs. Doubt- 
less this shell-fish had there taken up his quarters, and 
thrown his own body into the breach, in order the 
better to preserve the precious contents of the cask. 
The bystanders were breathless, when at last this pun- 
cheon was canted over and a tin-pot held to the orifice. 
What was to come forth? salt-water or wine? But 
a rich purple tide soon settled the question, and the 
lieutenant assigned to taste it, with a loud and satisfac- 
tory smack of his lips, pronounced it Port ! 

" Oporto I" cried Mad Jack, " and no mistake I^' 
But, to the surprise, grief, and consternation of the 
sailors, an order now came from the quarter-deck to 
'^ strike the strangers down into the main-hold ! '^ 
This proceeding occasioned all sorts of censorious ob- 
servations upon the Captain, who, of course, had 
authorized it. 

It must be related here that^ on the passage out 
from home, the Neversink had touched at Madeira; 
and there, as is often the case with men-of-war, the 
Commodore and Captain had laid in a goodly stock of 
wines for their own private tables, and the benefit of 
their foreign visitors. And although the Commodore 
was a small, spare man, who evidently emptied but few 
glasses, yet Captain Claret was a portly gentleman, with 
a crimson face, whose father had fought at the battle of 
the Brandywine, and whose brother had commanded 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 243 

the well-known frigate named in honour of that en- 
gagement. And his whole appearance evinced that 
Captain Claret himself had fonght many Brandywine 
battles ashore in honour of his sirens memory^ and 
commanded in many bloodless Brandywine actions 
at sea. 

It was therefore with some savour of provocation that 
the sailors held forth on the ungenerous conduct of 
Captain Claret, in stepping in between them and Pro- 
vidence, as it were, which by this lucky windfaU, they 
held, seemed bent upon relieving their necessities; 
while Captam Claret himself, with an inexhaustible 
cellar, emptied his Madeira decanters at his leisure. 

But next day all hands were electrified by the old 
famiUar sound— so long hushed— of the drum roUing 
to grog. 

After that the port was served out twice a day, till all 
was expended. 



H^ 



244 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THB CHAPLAIN AFD OHAPEL IK A MAN-OF-WAB. 

The next day was Sunday; a fact set down in the 
almanac^ spite of merchant seamen's maxim^ that there 
are no Sundays off soundings. 

No Sundays off soundings, indeed! No Sundays on 
shipboard ! You may as well say there should be no 
Sundays in churches ; for is not a ship modelled after 
a church ? has it not three spires — ^three steeples ? yea, 
and on the gun-deck^ a bell and a belfry ? And does 
not that bell merrily peal every Sunday morning, to 
summon the crew to devotions ? 

At any rate, there were Sundays on board this parti- 
cular frigate of ours, and a clergyman also. He was 
a slender, middle-aged man, of an amiable deportment 
and irreproachable conversation; but I must say, that 
his sermons were but ill calculated to benefit the crew. 
He had drank at the mystic fountain of Plato; his 
head had been turned by the Grermans ; and this I will 
say, that White- Jacket himself saw him with Coleridge's 
Biographia Literaria in his hand. 

Fancy, now, this transcendental divine standing 
behind a gun-carriage on the main-deck, and addressing 



THE WOfiLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 245 

five hundred salt-sea sinners upon the psychological 
phenomena of the soul^ and the ontological necessity of 
every sailor's saving it at all hazards. He enlarged 
upon the follies of the ancient philosophers ; learnedly 
alluded to the Fhsedon of Plato; exposed the follies of 
Simplicius's Commentary on Aristotle's '^De Coelo," 
by arraying against that clever Pagan author the 
admired tract of Tertullian — De Pr/Bscriptionilms Htere-^ 
ticorum — ^and concluded by a Sanscrit invocation. He 
was particularly hard upon the Gnostics and Mar- 
cionites of the second century of the Christian era; 
but he never^ in the remotest manner^ attacked the 
every-day vices of the nineteenth century, as eminently 
illustrated in our man-of-war world. Concerning 
drunkenness, fighting, fledging, and oppression — ^things 
expressly or impliedly prohibited by Christianity — he 
never said aught. But the most mighty Commodore 
and Captain sat before him; and in general, if, in 
a monarchy, the state form the audience of the church, 
little evangelical piety wiU be preached. Hence, the 
harmless, non-committal abstrusities of our Chaplain 
were not to be wondered at. He was no MassiUon, to 
thunder forth his ecclesiastical rhetoric, even when 
a Louis le Grand was enthroned among his congrega- 
tion. Nor did the chaplains who preached on the 
quarter-deck of Lord Nelson ever allude to the guilty 
Felix, nor to Delilah, nor practically reason of 
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, 



246 WHnE-JACGCET; OB, 

* 

when that renowned Admiral sat^ sword-belted^ before 
them. 

During these Sunday discourses^ the officers always 
sat in a circle round the Chaplain^ and^ with a btisiness- 
like air^ steadily preserved the utmost propriety. In 
particular^ our old Commodore himself made a point of 
looking intensely edified; and not a sailor on board 
but believed that the Commodore^ being the greatest 
man present^ must alone comprehend the mystic 
sentences that fell from our parson's lips. 

Of all the noble lords in the ward-room^ tUs lord* 
spiritual^ with the exception of the Purser^ was in the 
highest favour with the Commodore^ who firequently 
conversed with him in a close and confidential manner. 
Nor^ upon reflection^ was tliis to be marvelled at^ seeing 
how efficacious it is^ in some governments^ for the 
throne and altar to go hand-in-hand. 

The* accommodations of our chapel were very poor. 
We had nothing to sit on but the great gun-rammers 
and capstan-bars^ placed horizontally upon shot^boxes. 
These seats were exceedingly uncomfortable^ wearing 
out our trowsers and our tempers^ and^ no doubt^ 
impeded the conversion of many valuable souls. 

To say the truths man-of-war's-men^ in general^ make 
but poor auditors upon these occasions, and adopt ev^ry 
possible means to elude them. Often the boatswain's- 
mates were obliged to drive the men to service, violently 
swearing upon these occasions, as upon every other. 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 247 

"Go to prayers, d — ^n you ! To prayers, you rascals 
— ^to prayers !" In this clerical invitation Captain 
Claret would frequently unite. 

At this Jack Chase would sometimes make merry. 
'' Come, boys, don't hang back,'' he would say ; " come, 
let us go hear the parson talk about his Lord High 
Admiral Plato, and Commodore Socrates." 

But, in one instance, grave exception was taken to 
this summons. A remarkably serious, but bigoted 
seaman, a sheet-anchor-man — ^whose private devotions 
may hereafter be alluded to— once touched his hat to 
the Captain, and respectfully said, '' Sir, I am a 
Baptist ; the chaplain is an Episcopalian ; his form of 
worship is not mine ; I do not believe with him, and it 
is against my conscience to be under his ministry. 
May I be allowed, sir, not to attend service on the 
half-deck ?" 

"You will be allowed, sir!" said the Captain, 
haughtily, '^to obey the laws of the ship. If you 
absent yourself from prayers on Sunday mornings, you 
know the penalty." 

According to the Articles of War, the Captain was 
perfectly right ; but if any law requiring an American 
to attend divine service against his will be a law re- 
specting the establishment of religion, then the Articles 
of War are, in this one particular, opposed to the 
American Constitution, which expressly says, "Congress 
fihall make no law respecting the establishment of 



248 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

religion^ or the free exercise thereof/^ But this is only 
one of several things in which the Articles of War are 
repugnant to that instrument. They will be ^bmced 
at in another part of the narrative. 

The motive which prompts the introduction of chap- 
lains into the Navy cannot but be warmly responded to 
by every Christian. But it does not follow^ that because 
chaplains are to be found in men-of-war^ that^ under 
the present system^ they achieve much goodj or that, 
under any other^ they ever will. 

How can it be expected that the religion of peace 
should flourish in an oaken castle of war ? How can it 
be expected that the clergyman^ whose pulpit is a 
forty-two-pounder^ should convert sinners to a faith 
that enjoins them to turn the right cheek when the left 
is smitten? How is it to be expected that when^ 
according to the XLII*^ of the Articles of War^ as they 
now stand unrepealed on the Statute Book^ ^' a bounty 
shall be paid'' (to the officers and crew) '^by the 
United States government of t^O for each person on 
board any ship of an enemy which shall be sunk or 
destroyed by any United States ship ;'' and when by 
a subsequent section (vii.)^ it is provided among other 
apportionings^ that the chaplain shall receive '^two 
twentieths'' of this price paid for sinking and destroy- 
ing ships full of human beings; — ^how is it to be 
expected that a clergyman^ thus provided for^ should 
prove efficacious in enlarging upon the criminality of 



^«WI 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 849 

Judas^ who, for thirty pieces of silver, betrayed his 
Master? 

Although, by the regulations of the Navy, each 
seaman^s mess on board the Neversink was furnished 
with a Bible, these Bibles were seldom or never to be 
seen, except on Sunday mornings, when usage demands 
that they shall be exhibited by the cooks of the messes, 
when the master-at-arms goes his rounds on the berth- 
deck. At such times, they usually surmounted a highly* 
polished tin-pot placed on the lid of the chest. 

Ytst, for all this, the Christianity of man-of-war's- 
men, and their disposition to contribute to pious 
enterprises, are often reHed upon. Several times sub- 
scription papers were circulated among the crew of the 
Neversink, while in harbour, under the direct patro- 
nage of the Chaplain. One was for the purpose of 
building a seaman's chapel in China; another to pay 
the salary of a tract distributor in Greece ; a third to 
raise a fond for the benefit of an A&ican Colonization 
Society. 

Where the Captain himself is a moral man, he 
makes a far better chaplain for his crew than any cler- 
gyman can be. This is sometimes illustrated in the 
case of sloops of war and armed brigs, which are not 
allowed a regular chaplain. I have known one crew, 
who were warmly attached to a naval commander 
worthy of their love, who have mustered even with 
alacrity to the call to prayer ; and when their Captain 

m3 



250 WHITE. JACKET ; OK, 

would read the Church of England service to them^ 
would present a congregation not to be surpassed for 
earnestness and devotion by any Scottish kirk. It 
seemed like family devotions^ where the head of the 
house is foremost in confessing himself before his 
Maker. But our own hearts are our best prayer- 
rooms^ and the chaplains who can most help us are 
ourselves. 



THE WOBLD m A lUlf-OF-WAIU 251 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE FBIGATE IS HARBOUR. — THB BOATS. — ORAND STATE RKOEPTION OF 

THE OOMMODORB. 

In good time we were up with the parallel of Rio de 
Janeiro^ and^ standing in for the land^ the mist soon 
cleared ; and high aloft the famed Sugar Loaf pinnacle 
was seen^ our bowsprit pointing for it straight as a die. 

As we gUded on toward our anchorage^ the bands of 
the various men-of-war in harbour saluted us with 
national airs, and gallantly lowered their ensigns. 
Nothing can exceed the courteous etiquette of these 
ships^ of all nations^ in greeting their brethren. Of 
all men, your accomplished duellist is generally the 
most polite. 

We lay in Rio some weeks, lazily taking in stores 
and otherwise preparing for the passage home. But 
though Rio is one of the most magnificent bays in the 
world; though the city itself contains many striking 
objects ; and though much might be said of the Sugar 
Loaf and Signal Hill heights ; and the little islet of 
Lucia ; and the fortified Ilha dos Cobras, or Isle of the 
Snakes (though the only anacondas and adders now 
found in the arsenals there are great guns and pistols) ; 



252 WHITE- JACKET j OB, 

and Lord Wood's Nose — a lofty eminence said by sea- 
men to resemble his lordship's conch-shell; and the 
prays do Flamingo— a noble tract of beach^ so called 
from its having been the resort^ in olden times^ of those 
gorgeous birds; and the charming Bay of Botofogo, 
which^ spite of its name^ is fragrant as the neighbour- 
ing Larangieros^ or Yalley of the Oranges ; and the 
green Gloria Hill, surmounted by the belfries of the 
queenly Church of Nossa Senora de Gloria; and the 
iron-gray Benedictine convent near by; and the fine 
drive and promenade, Passeo Publico ; and the massive 
arch-over-arch aqueduct, Arcos de Carico; and the 
Emperor's Palace; and the Empress's Gardens; and 
the fine Church de Candelaria ; and the gilded throne 
on wheels, drawn by eight silken, silver-belled mules, in 
which, of pleasant evenings, his Imperial Majesty is 
driven out of town to his Moorish villa of St. Christova 
— ay, though much might be said of all this, yet must 
I forbear, if I may, and adhere to my one proper object, 
the world in a man-of-war. 

Behold, now, the Neversink under a new aspect. 
W^th all her batteries, she is tranquilly lying in har- 
bour, surrounded by English, French, Dutch, Portu- 
guese, and Brazilian seventy-fours, moored in the deep- 
green water, close under the lee of that oblong, castel- 
lated mass of rock, Bha dos Cobras, which, with its 
port-holes and lofty flag-staffs, looks Hke another man- 
of-war, fast anchored in the bay. But what is an 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OI-WAR. 253. 

insnlar fortress^ indeed^ but an embattled land-slide 
into the sea &om the world Gibraltars and Quebecs ? 
And what a main-land fortress but a few decks of 
a line-of-battle ship transplanted ashore 7 They are all 
one — all, as King David, men-of-war from their youth. 

Ay, behold now the Neversink at her anchors, in 
many respects presenting a different appearance from 
what she presented at sea. Nor is the routine of life 
on board the same. 

At sea there is more to employ the sailors, and less 
temptation to violations of the law. Whereas, in port, 
unless some particular service engages them, they lead 
the laziest of lives, beset by all the allurements of the 
shore, though perhaps that shore they may never touch. 

Unless you happen to belong to one of the numerous 
boats, which, in a man-of-war in harbour, are con- 
tinually plying to and &om the land, you are mostly 
thrown upon your own resources to while away the 
time. Whole days frequently pass without your being 
individually called upon to lift a finger; for though, in 
the merchant-service, they make a point of keeping the 
men always busy about something or other, yet, to 
employ five himdred sailors when there is nothing 
definite to be done, wholly surpasses the ingenuity of 
any First Lieutenant in the Navy. 

As mention has just been made of the numerous 
boats employed in harbour, something more may as well 
be put down concerning them. Our frigate carried 



254 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

a very large boat — as big as a small sloop — called 
a launch, which was generaUy used for getting oflF wood, 
water^ and other bulky articles. Besides this, she car^ 
ried four boats of an arithmetical progression in point 
of size — ^the largest being known as the first cutter, the 
next largest the second cutter, then the third and fourth 
cutters. She also carried a Commodore^s Barge, a 
Captain^s Gig, and a '^dingy,'* a small yawl, with a crew 
of apprentice boys. All these boats, except the '' dingy,'' 
had their regular crews, who were subordinate to their 
cockswains, or steersmen — petty officers, receiving pay 
in addition to their seaman's wages. 

The launch was manned by the old Tritons of the 
fore-castle, who were no ways particular about their 
dress, while the other boats — commissioned for gen- 
teeler duties — ^were rowed by young fellows, mostly, who 
had a dandy eye to their personal appearance. Above 
all, the officers see to it that the Commodore's Barge 
and the Captain's Gig are manned by gentlemanly 
youths, who may do credit to their coxmtry, and form 
agreeable objects for the eyes of the Commodore or 
Captain to repose upon as he tranquilly sits in the 
stem, when puUed ashore by his barge-men or gig-men, 
as the case may be. Some sailors are very fond of 
belonging to the boats, and deem it a great honour to 
be a Commodore^s bargeman ; but others, perceiving no 
particular distinction in that office, do not court it so 
much. 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OJ-WAa. 255 

On the second day after arriving at Bio^ one of the 
gig-men fell sick, and, to my no small concern, I found 
myself temporarily appointed to his place. 

" Come, White-Jacket, rig yourself in white — ^that's 
the gig's imiform to-day ; you are a gig-man, my boy 
— ^give ye joy ! " This was the first announcement of 
the fact that I heard ; but soon after it was officially 
ratified. 

I was about to seek the First Lieutenant, and plead 
the scantiness of my wardrobe, which wholly disqualified 
me to fiU so distinguished a station, when I heard the 
bugler call away the '' gig ;" and, without more ado, I 
slipped into a clean frock, which a messmate doffed for 
my benefit, and soon after found myself pulling off his 
High Mightiness, the Captain, to an English seventy- 
four. 

As we were bounding along, the cockswain suddenly 
cried " Oars I" At the word every oar was suspended 
in the air, while our Commodore's barge floated by, 
bearing that dignitary himself. At the sight. Captain 
Claret removed his chapeau, and saluted profoundly, 
our boat laying motionless on the water. But the 
barge never stopped; and the Commodore made but 
a slight return to the obsequious salute he had received. 

We then resumed rowing, and presently I heard 
'^Oars!'' again; but from another boat, the second 
cutter, which turned out to be carrying a Lieutenant 
ashore. It was now Captain Claret's turn to be 
honoured. The cutter lay still, and the Lieutenant off 



256 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 

hat; while the Captain only nodded^ and we kept on 
our way. 

This naval etiquette is very much like the etiquette 
at the Grand Porte of Constantinople^ where, alEter 
washing the Sublime Sultanas feet, the Grand Vizier 
avenges himself on an Emir, who does the same office 
for him. 

When we arrived aboard the English seventy-four, 
the Captain was received with the usual honours, and 
the gig's crew were conducted below, and hospitably 
regaled with some spirits, served out by order of the 
officer of the deck. 

Soon after, the English crew went to quarters ; and 
as they stood up at their guns, all along the main-deck, 
a row of beef -fed Britons, stalwart-looking fellows, 
I was struck with the contrast they afiPorded to similar 
sights on board of the Neversink. 

For on board of \xs, our '^ quarters" showed an array 
of rather slender, lean-cheeked chaps. But then I made 
no doubt, that, in a sea-tussle, these lantern-jawed 
varlets would have approved themselves as sl^ider 
Damascus blades, nimble and flexible; whereas these 
Britains would have been, perhaps, as sturdy broad- 
swords. Yet every one remembers that story of Saladin 
and Bichard trying their respective blades ; how gallant 
Bichard clove an anvil in twain, or something quite as 
ponderous, and Saladin elegantly severed a cushion; so 
that the two monarchs were even — each excelling in 
his way — though, unfortunately for my simile, in 



■•▼- 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 257 

a patriotic point of view^ Bichard whipped Saladin's 
armies in the end. 

There happened to be a lord on board of this ship — 
the younger son of an earl^ they told me. He was a 
fin&-looking fellow. I chanced to stand by when he put 
a question to an Irish captain of a gun ; upon the sea- 
man^s inadvertently saying sir to him^ his lordship 
looked daggers at the slight ; and the sailor^ touching 
his hat a thousand times^ said^ '^ Pardon^ your honour j 
I meant to say my lord, sir ! " 

I was much pleased with an old white-headed musi- 
dan, who stood at the main hatchway, with his enor- 
mous bass drum full before him^ and thumping it 
sturdily to the tune of '' God save the King '/' though 
small mercy did he have on his drum-heads. Two 
little boys were clashing cymbals^ and another was 
blowing a fife^ with his cheeks puffed out like the 
plumpest of his country^s plum-puddings. 

When we returned from this trip^ there again took 
place that ceremonious reception of our Captain on 
board the vessel he commanded^ which always had 
struck me as exceedingly diverting. 

In the first place^ while in port^ one of the quarter- 
masters is always stationed on the poop with a spy- 
glass^ to look out for all boats approaching^ and report 
the same to the officer of the deck ; also, who it is that 
may be coming in them ; so that preparations may be 
made accordingly. As soon^ then^ as the gig touched 
the side^ a mightily shrill piping was heard, as if some 



258 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

boys were celebrating the Fourth of July with penny 
whistles. This proceeded from a boatswain's mate^ 
who^ standing at the gangway^ was thus honouring the 
Captain's return after his long and perilous absence. 

The Captain then slowly mounted the ladder, and 
gravely marching through a lane of ^^ side-boys/* so 
called — all in their best bibs and tuckers, and who 
stood making sly faces behind his back — ^was received 
by all the Lieutenants in a body, their hats in their 
hands, and making a prodigious scraping and bowing, 
as if they had just graduated at a French dancing- 
school. Meanwhile, preserving an erect, inflexible, and 
ram-rod carriage, and slightly touching his chapeau, 
the Captain made his ceremonious way to the cabin, 
disappearing behind the scenes, like the pasteboard 
ghost in Hamlet. 

But these ceremonies are nothing to those in homage 
of the Commodore's arrival, even should he depart and 
arrive twenty times a day. Upon such occasions, the 
whole marine guard, except the sentries on duty, are 
marshalled on the quarter-deck, presenting arms as ihe 
Commodore passes them ; while their commanding officer 
gives the military salute with his sword, as if making 
masonic signs. Meanwhile, the boatswain himself— 
not a boatswain^s mate — ^is keeping up a persevering 
whistling with his silver pipe ; for the Commodore is 
never greeted with the rude whistle of a boatswain's 
subaltern ; that would be positively insulting. All the 
Lieutenants and Midshipmen^ besides the Captain him* 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 259 

self^ are drawn up in a phalanx^ and oS hat together ; 
and the side-boys, whose number is now increased to 
ten or twelve^ make an imposing display at the gang- 
way; while the whole brass band^ elevated upon the 
poop, strike up, ''See! the Conquering Hero comes!" 
At least, this was the tune that our Captam always 
hinted^ by a gesture, to the captain of the band, when- 
ever the Commodore arrived from shore. It conveyed 
a complimentary appreciation, on the Captain^s part, of 
the Commodore^s heroifon during the late war. 

To return to the gig. As I did not reHsh the idea of 
being a sort of body-servant to Captain Claret— since 
his gigmen were often called upon to scrub his cabin 
floor, and perform other duties for him — I made it my 
particular business to get rid of my appointment in his 
boat as soon as possible, and the next day after re- 
ceiving it succeeded in procuring a substitute, who was 
glad of the chance to fill the position I so much under- 
valued. 

And thus, with our counterlikes and dislikes, most of 
us man-of-war's-men harmoniously dove-tail into each 
other, and, by our very points of opposition, unite in 
a clever whole, like the parts of a Chinese puzzle. But 
as, in a Chinese puzzle, many pieces are hard to place 
so there are some unfortunate fellows who can never slip 
into their proper angles, and thus the whole puzzle 
becomes a puzzle indeed, which is the precise condition 
of the greatest puzzle in the world — this man-of-war 
world itself. 



260 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 



CHAPTER XL. 

80XB OF THE OEKEMONIBS IN A HAN-OF-WAS XTNinBOBSSAKT AND 

INJUBIOVS. 

The ceremonials of a man-of-war^ some of wliich have 
been described in the preceding chapter^ may merit 
a reflection or two. 

The general usages of the American Navy are founded 
upon the usages that prevailed in the Navy of mo- 
narchical England more than a century ago ; nor have 
they been materially altered since. And while both 
England and America have become greatly liberalized in 
the interval ; while shore pomp in high places has come 
to be regarded by the more intelligent masses of men 
as belonging to the absurd^ ridiculous^ and mock-heroic; 
while that most truly august of all the majesties of 
earthy the President of the United States^ may be seen 
entering his residence with his umbreUa under his arm, 
and no brass band or military guard at his heels^ and 
imostentatiously taking his seat by the side of the 
meanest citizen in a public conveyance; while this is 
the case^ there still lingers in American men-of-war all 
the stilted etiquette and childish parade of the old- 
fia^oned court of Madrid. Indeed, so far as the things 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 261 

that meet the eye are concerned, an American Commo- 
dore is by far a greater man than the President of 
twenty millions of freemen. 

But we plain people ashore might very willingly be 
content to leave these commodores in the unmolested 
possession of their gUded penny whistles, rattles, and 
gewgaws, since they seem to take so much pleasure in 
them, were it not that all this is attended by con- 
sequences to their subordinates in the last degree to be 

deplored. 

While hardly any one will question that a naval 
officer should be surrounded by circumstances cal- 
culated to impart a requisite dignity to his position, 
it is not the less certain that, by the excessive pomp 
he at present maintains, there is naturally and unavoid- 
ably generated a feeling of servility and debasement 
in the hearts of most of the seamen who continually 
behold a fellow-mortal flourishing over their heads Kke 
the archangel Michael with ^ thousand wings. And as, 
in degree, this same pomp is observed toward their 
inferiors by all the grades of commissioned officers, 
even down to a midshipman, the evil is proportionably 
multiplied. 

It would not at all diminish a proper respect for the 
officers, and subordination to their authority among 
the seamen, were all this idle parade — only ministering 
to the arrogance of the officers, without at all benefit- 
ing the State — completely done away. But to do so, 



262 WHITE- JACKET; OB, 

we voters and lawgivers ourselves must be no respecters 
of persons. 

That saying about levelling upward, and not down- 
ward, may seem very fine to those who cannot see its 
self-involved absurdity. But the truth is^ that to gain 
the true levels in some things^ we mtut cut downward ; 
for how can you make every sailor a commodore ? or 
how raise the valleys^ without filling them up with the 
superfluous tops of the hills ? 

Some discreet^ but democratic legislation in this 
matter is much to be desired. And by bringing down 
naval oflicers^ in these things at leasts without affecting 
their Isgitimate dignity and authority, we shaU corre- 
spondingly elevate the common sailor^ without relaxing 
the subordination in which he should by all means 
be retained. 



r -— . — - 



THE WOULD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 268 



CHAPTER XLI. 



A MAN-OF-WAR LIBRABT. 



NowHEBJB does time pass more heavily than with 
most man-of-war's-men on board their craft in harbour. 

One of my principal antidotes against ennui in Bio^ 
was reading. There was a pubHc library on boards 
paid for by government, and entrusted to the custody 
of one of the marine corporals, a little, dried-up man, 
of a somewhat literary turn. He had once been a 
clerk in a Post-office ashore; and, having been long 
accustomed to hand over letters when called for, he 
was now just the man to hand over books. He kept 
them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and when 
seeking a particular volume, had to capsize it like 
a barrel of potatoes. This made him very cross and 
irritable, as most all Librarians are. Who had the 
selection of these books, I do not know, but some of 
them must have been selected by our Chaplain, who so 
pranced on Coleridge's " Hiffh German Horse.*' 

Mason Gk)od's Book of Nature — a very good book, 
to be sure, but not precisely adapted to tarry tastes — 
was one of these volumes; and MachiavePs Art of 
War — which was very dry fighting; and a foUo of 



264 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

Tillotson's Sermons — ^the best of reading for divines, 
indeed, but with little relish for a main-top-man ; and 
Lockers Essays — incomparable essays, everybody knows, 
but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarcb's lives — 
superexcellent biographies which pit Greek against 
Boman in beautiful style, but then, in a sailor^s 
estimation, not to be mentioned with the lAves of the 
Admirals; and Blair's Lectures, University Edition — 
a fine treatise on rhetoric, but having nothing to say 
about nautical phrases, such as " splicinff the main 
brace/' ^* passing a gammoning/' ^^ puMinging the doU 
phin/' and " milking a Carrick-bend /' besides numerous 
invaluable but unreadable tomes, that might have been 
purchased cheap at the auction of some college-pro- 
fessor's library. 

But I found ample entertainment in a few choice old 
authors, whom I stumbled upon in various parts of the 
ship, among the inferior officers. One was " Morgan's 
History of Algiers/' a famous old quarto, abounding in 
picturesque narratives of corsairs, captives, dungeons, 
and sea-fights; and making mention of a cruel old 
Dey, who, toward the latter part of his life, was so 
filled with remorse for his cruelties and crimes that he 
could not stay in bed after four o'clock in the morning, 
but had to rise in great trepidation and walk off his bad 
feelings till breakfast time. And another venerable 
octavo, containing a certificate from Sir Christopher 
Wren to its authenticity, entitled '* Knoa^s Captivity in 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OP-WAR. 265 

Ceylon, 1681 *' — abounding in stories about the Devil, 
who was superstitiously supposed to tyrannize over that 
unfortunate land ; to^ mollify him, the priests offered 
up buttermilk, red-cocks, and sausages; and the Devil 
ran roaring about in the woods, frightening travellers 
out of their wits : insomuch that the Islanders bitterlv 
lamented to Knox that their country was full of devils, 
and, consequently, there was no hope for their eventual 
well-being. Knox swears that he himself heard the 
Devil roar, though he did not see his horns ; it was 
a terrible noise, he says, like the baying of a hungry 
mastiff. 

Tlien there was Walpole's Letters — very witty, pert, 
and polite — and some odd volumes of plays, each of 
which was a precious casket of jewels of good things, 
shaming the trash, nowadays passed off for dramas, con- 
taining "The Jew of Malta,'' " Old Fortunatus," "The 
City Madam,'' " Volpone," " The Alchymist," and 
other glorious old dramas of the age of Marlow and 
Jonson, and that literary Damon and Pythias, the mag- 
nificent, mellow old Beaumont and Metcher, who have 
sent the long shadow of their reputation, side by side 
with Shakspeare's, far down the endless vale of pos- 
terity. And may that shadow never be less ! but as 
for St. Shakspeare, may his never be more, lest the 
commentators arise, and settling upon his sacred text, 
like unto locusts, devour it clean up, leaving never a dot 
over an I. 

VOL. I. N 



266 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

I diversified this reading of mine by borrowing 
Moore's '^ Loves of the Angels^' from Bose-water^ who 
recommended it as " de charmingest qfwolumes;^' and 
a Negro Song-book, containing Sittin' on a Rally Gumbo 
Squash, and Jim along Josey, from Broadbit, a sheet- 
anchor-man. The sad taste of this old tar, in admiring 
such vulgar stuff, was much denounced by Rose-water, 
whose own predilections were of a more elegant nature, 
as evinced by his exalted opinion of the literary merits 
of the " Loves of the Angels.'' 

I was by no means the only reader of books on board 
the Neversink. Several other sailors were diligent 
readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of 
belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you 
may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; 
they were slightly physiological in their nature. My 
book experiences on board of the frigate proved an 
example of a fact which every book-lover must have 
experienced before me, namely, that though public libra- 
ries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invalu- 
able volumes, yet^ somehow, the books that prove most 
agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we 
pick up by chance here and there ; those which seem 
put into our hands by Providence ; those which pretend 
to little, but abound in much. 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 267 



CHAPTER XLn. 

KILLIHO TDUE IB A MAN-OF-WAB IH HABBOUB. 

Bjiaping was by no means the only method adopted 
by my shipmates in whiling away the long tedious 
hours in harbour. In truths many of them could not 
have read^ had they wanted to ever so much ; in early 
youth their primers had been sadly neglected. Still, 
they had other pursuits ; . some were expert at the 
needle, and employed their time in making elaborate 
shirts, stitching picturesque eagles, and anchors, and all 
the stars of the federated states in the collars thereof; 
so that when they at last completed and put on these 
shirts, they may be said to have hoisted the American 
colours. 

Others excelled in tattooing^ or pricking^ as it is 
caUed in a man-of-war. Of these prickers, two had 
long been celebrated in their way, as consummate 
masters of the art. Each had a small box foU of tools 
and colouring matter ; and they charged so high for 
their services, that at the end of the cruise they were 
supposed to have cleared upwards of four hundred 

n2 



268 'WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

dollars. They wovli prick you to order a palm-tree, an 
anchor, a crucifix, a lady, a lion, an eagle, or any thing 
else you might want. 

The Roman Catholic sailors on board had at least the 
crucifix pricked on their arms, and for this reason : If 
they chanced to die in a Catholic land, they would be 
sure of a decent burial in consecrated ground, as the 
priest would be sure to observe the symbol of Mother 
Church on their persons. They would not fare as 
^Protestant sailors dying in Callao, who are shoved 
under the sands of St. Lorenzo, a solitary, volcanic 
island in the harbour, overrun with reptiles, their here- 
tical bodies not being permitted to repose in the more 
genial loam of Lima. 

And many sailors not Catholics were anxious to have 
the crucifix painted on them, owing to a curious super- 
stition of theirs. They aflfirm — some of them — that if 
you have that mark tattooed upon all four limbs, you 
might fall overboard among seven hundred and seventy- 
five thousand white sharks, all dinnerless, and not one 
of them would so much as dare to smell at your little 
finger. 

We had one fore-top-man on board, who, during 
the entire cruise, was having an endless cable pricked 
round and round his waist, so that, when his frock was 
off, he looked like a capstan with a hawser coiled round 
about it. This fore-top-man paid eighteen pence per 
link for the cable, besides being on the smart the whole 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 269 

Cruise, suffering the effects of his repeated puncturings; 
so he paid veiy dear for his cable. 

One other mode of passing time while in port was 
cleaning and polishing your bright-work; for it must be 
known that, in men-of-war, every sailor has some brass 
or steel of one kind or other to keep ia high order — 
like house-maids, whose business it is to keep well- 
polished the knobs on the front-door railing and the 
parlour-grates. 

Excepting the ring-bolts, eye-bolts, and belaying- 
pins scattered about the decks, this bright- work, as it is 
called, is principally about the guns, embracing the 
" monkey-tails " of the carronades, the screws, prickers, 
Uttle irons, and other things. 

The portion that fell to my own share I kept in 
superior order, quite equal in polish to Rogers^s best 
cutlery. I received the most extravagant encomiums 
from the officers ; one of whom offered to match me 
against any brasier or brass-polisher in her British 
Majesty^s Navy. Indeed, I devoted myself to the 
work body and soul, and thought no pains too painful, 
and no labour too laborious, to achieve the highest 
attainable polish possible for us poor lost sons of Adam 
to reach. 

Upon one occasion, even, when woollen rags were 
scarce, and no burned-brick was to be had from the 
ship's-yeoman, I sacrificed the comers of my woollen 
shirt, and usQd some dentifrice I had, as substitutes for 



270 WHTEB-JACKET ; OR, 

the rags and burned-brick. The dentrifice operated 
delightfully^ and made the threading of my carronade 
screw shine and grin agam, like a set of &lse teeth in 
an eager heiress-hunter's mouth. 

Still another mode of passing time^ was arraying your- 
sdf in your best ^^ togs^^ and promenading up and down 
the gun-deck^ admiring the shore scenery from the 
port-holes, which^ in an amphitheatrical bay like Bio->- 
belted about by the most varied and charming scenery 
of hill^ dale, moss, meadow, court, castle, tower, grove, 
vine, vineyard, aqueduct, palace, square, island, fort — 
isTery much like lounging round a circular cosmomna, 
and ever and anon lazdly peeping through the glasses 
here and there. Oh ! there is something worth living 
for, even in our man-of-war world ; and one glimpse of 
a bower of grapes, though a cablets length off, is afanosfc 
satisfaction for dining off a shank-bone salted down. 

This promenading was chiefly patronised by the 
marines, and particularly by Colbrook, a remarkaldy 
handsome and very gentlemanly corporal among them. 
He was a complete lady's man; with fine blac^ ^es, 
bright red cheeks, glossy jet whiskers, and a refined 
organization of the whole man. He used to array him- 
self in his regimentals, and saunter about like an officer 
of the Coldstream Ouards, strolling down to his cfaib in 
St. James's. Every time he passed me, he would heste 
a sentimental sigh, and hum to himself ^^ The girl I kft 
behind me.*' This fine corporal afterward became a 



THE WORLD IN A MAN^F-WAE. 271 

representatiye in the Legislature of the State of New 
Jersey; for I saw his name returned about a year after 
mj return home. 

But, after all, there was not much room, while in 
port, for promenading, at least on the gun-deck, for the 
whole larboard side is kept clear for the benefit of the 
o£Bicers, who appreciate the advantages of haying a clear 
stroll fore and aft j and they well know that the sailors had 
much better be crowded together on the other side than 
that the set of their own coat-tails should be impaired 
by brushing against their tarry trowsers. 

One other way of killing time while in port is playing 
checkers ; that is, when it is permitted ; for it is not 
every navy captain who will allow such a scandalous 
proceeding. But, as for Captain Claret, though he did 
like his glass of Madeira uncommonly well, and was an 
undoubted descendant from the hero of the Battle of 
the Brandywine, and though he sometimes showed 
a suspiciously flushed face when superintending in per- 
son the flogging of a sailor for getting intoxicated 
against his particular orders, yet I will say for Captain 
Claret that, upon the whole, he was rather indulgent to 
his crew, so long as they were perfectly docile. He 
allowed them to play checkers as much as they pleased. 
More than once I have known him, when going forward 
to the forecastle, pick his way carefully among scores of 
canvass checker-cloths spread upon the deck, so as not 
to tread upon the men — the checker-men and maa-of- 



272 WHITE- JACKET ; OR, 

war^s-men included ; but, in a certain sense, they were 
both one ; for, as the sailors used their checker-men, 
so, at quarters, their officers used these man-of-war*s- 
men. 

But Captain Claret^s leniency in permitting checkers 
on board his ship might have arisen &om the following 
little circumstance, confidentially communicated to me. 
Soon after the ship had sailed from home, checkers 
were prohibited ; whereupon the sailors were exasperated 
against the Captain ; and one night, when he was walk* 
ing round the forecastle, bim ! came an iron belaying- 
pin past his ears ; and while he was dodging that, bim ! 
came another, from the other side ; so that, it being 
a very dark night, and nobody to be seen, and it being 
impossible to find out the trespassers, he thought it best 
to get back into his cabin as soon as possible. Some 
time affcer — just as if the belaying-pins had nothing to 
do with it — it was indirectly rumoured that the checker- 
boards might be brought out again, which — as a philo- 
sophical shipmate observed — ^showed that Captain Claret 
was a man of a ready understanding, and could under- 
stand a hint as well as any other man, even when 
conveyed by several pounds of iron. 

Some of the sailors were very precise about their 
checker-cloths, and even went so far that they would 
not let you play with them unless you first washed your 
hands, especially if so be you had just come from tarring 
down the rigging. 



THE WOELD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 278 

Another way of beguiling the tedious hours^ is to get 
a cosy seat somewhere^ and fall into as snug a Httle 
reverie as you can. Or if a seat is not to be had — 
which is frequently the case — ^then get a tolerably 
comfortable stand-up against the bulwarks^, and begin 
to think about home and bread and butter — always 
inseparably connected to a wanderer — which will very 
soon bring delicious tears into your eyes; for every 
one knows what a luxury is grief, when you can get 
a private closet to enjoy it in, and no Paul Prys 
intrude. Several of my shore friends, indeed, when 
suddenly overwhelmed by some disaster, always make 
a point of flying to the first oyster-cellar, and shutting 
themselves up in a box, with nothing but a plate of 
stewed oysters, some crackers, the castor, and a 
decanter of old port. 

Still another way of killing time in harbour, is to 
lean over the bulwarks, and speculate upon where 
under the sim you are going to be that day next year, 
which is a subject foil of interest to every living soul ; 
so much so, that there is a particular day of a par- 
ticular month of the year, which, from my earliest 
recollections, I have always kept the run of, so that 
I can even now tell just where I was on that identical 
day of every year past since I was twelve years old. 
And when I am all alone, to run over this almanac in 
my mind is almost as entertaining as to read my diary, 
and far more interesting than to peruse a table of 

n3 



274 WHITE-JACKET; ORy 

logarithms on a rainy afternoon. I always keep the 
anniversary of that day with lamb and peas^ and 
a pint of Sherry, for it comes in Spring. But when it 
came round in the Neversink, I could get neither 
lamb, peas, nor Sherry. 

But perhaps the best way to drive the hours before 
you four-in-hand, is to select a soft plank on the gun- 
deck, and go to sle^. A fine specific, which seldom 
fails, unless, to be sure, you have been sleeping all the 
47wenty-four hours beforehand. 

Whenever employed in killing time in harbour, 
I have lifted myself up on my elbow and looked around 
me, and seen so many of my shipmates all employed at 
the same common business; all under lock and key; 
all hopeless prisoners like myself; all under martial 
law ; all dieting on salt beef and Uscuit ; all in one 
uniform; all yawning, gaping, and stretching in 
concert, it was then that I used to feel a certain love 
and affection for them, grounded, doubtless, on a 
fellow-feeling. 

And though, in a previous part of this nanative, 
I have mentioned that I used to hold myself somewhat 
aloof from the mass of seamen on board the Neversink; 
and though this was true, and my real acquaintances 
were comparatively few, and my intimates stiU fewer, 
yet, to tell the truth, it is quite impossible to live so 
long with five hundred of your fellow-beings, even if 
not of the best of families in the land, and with morals 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 275 

ihat would not be spoiled by further eultiyation ; it is 
quite impossible^ I sbj, to live with five hundred of 
your fellow-beings^ be they who they may, without 
feeting a common sympathy with them at the time^ 
and ever after cherishing some sort of interest in their 
welfare. 

The truth of this was curiously corroborated by 
a rather equivocal acquaintance of mine^ who^ among the 
men^ went by the name of " Shakifigs,'' He belonged 
to the fore-hold^ whence^ of a dark nighty he would 
sometimes emerge to chat with the sailors on deck. 
I never liked the man^s looks; I protest it was a mere 
accident that gave me the honour of his acquaintance, 
and generally I did my best to avoid him^ when he 
would come skulking^ like a gaol-bird^ out of his den^ 
into the liberal^ open air of the sky. Nevertheless, the 
anecdote this holder tcdd me is well worth preservings 
more especially the extraordinary frankness evinced in 
his narrating such a thing to a comparative stranger. 

The substance of his story was as follows : Shakings^ 
it seems^ had once been a convict in the New York 
Staters Prison at Sing Sing^ where he had been for 
years confined for a crime, which he gave me his solemn 
word of honour he was wholly innocent of. He told me 
that^ after his term had expired, and he went out into the 
world again, he never could stumble upon any of his 
old Sing Sing associates without dropping into a pubhc- 
liouse and talking over old times. And when fortune 



276 WHITE- JACKET ; OE^ 

would go hard with him^ and he felt out of sorts^ and 
incensed at matters and things in general^ he told me 
that^ at such time^ he almost wished he was back again 
in Sing Sing, where he was relieved from all anxieties 
about what he should eat and drink^ and was sjipported^ 
like the President of the United States and Prince 
Albert, at the public charge. He used to have such 
a snug little cell, he said, all to himself, and never felt 
afraid of housebreakers, for the walls were tmcommoxdy 
thick, and his door was securely bolted for him, and 
a watchman was all the time walking up and down in the 
passage, while he himself was fast asleep and dreaming. 
To this, in substance, the holder added, that he narrated 
this anecdote because he thought it applicable to a man- 
of-war, which he scandalously asserted to be a sort of 
State Prison afloat. 

Concerning the curious disposition to fraternize and 
be sociable, which this Shakings mentioned as charac- 
teristic of the convicts liberated from his old homestead 
at Sing Sing, it may well be asked, whether it may not 
prove to be some feeling, somehow akin to the remi- 
niscent impulses which influenced them, that shall here- 
after fraternally reunite all us mortals, when we shall 
have exchanged this State's Prison, man-of-war world of 
ours for another and a better. 

From the foregoing account of the great difficulty 
we had in killing time while in port, it must not be in- 
ferred that on board of the Neversink in Rio there was 



THE WOBIiD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 277 

literally no work to be done. At long intervals the 
launch would come alongside with water-casks^ to be 
emptied into iron tanks in the hold. In this way nearly 
fifty thousand gallons, as chronicled in the books of the 
master's mate, were decanted into the ship's bowels — 
a ninety days' allowance. With this huge Lake Ontario 
in us, the mighty Neversink might be said to resemble 
the united continent of the Eastern Hemisphere — ^float- 
ing in a vast ocean herself, and having a Mediterranean 
floating in her. 



278 WHETE-JACiKEr ; OR, 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



SMuaaLiNa in ▲ mak-of-wab. 



It is in a good degree owing to the idleness just 
described^ that^ while lying in harbour, the nian*of- 
war's-man is exposed to the most temptations, and gets 
into his saddest scrapes. For though his vessel be 
anchored a mile from the shore, and her sides are 
patrolled by sentries night and day, yet these things 
cannot entirely prevent the seductions of the land from 
reaching him. The prime agent in working his cala- 
mities in port is his old arch-enemy, the ever-devilish 
god of grog. 

Immured as the man-of-war's-man is, serving out his 
weary three years in a sort of sea-Newgate, from which 
he cannot escape, either by the roof or burrowing 
imder ground^ he too often flies to the bottle to seek 
relief from the intolerable ennui of nothing to do, and 
nowhere to go. His ordinary government allowance of 
spirits, one gill per diem^ is not enough to give a suffi- 
cient fiUip to his listless senses; he pronounces his 
grog basely watered; he scouts it, as thinner than 
muslin; he craves a more vigorous nip at the cable, 
a more sturdy sung at the halyards ; and if opium were 
to be had, many would steep themselves a thousand 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-Or-WAB. 279 

fathoms down in the densest fiunes of that obliTious 
drug. Tell him that the delirium tremens^ and the 
mania-a-potu lie in ambush for drunkards^ he will say 
to you, " Let them bear down upon me, then, before 
the wind ; any thing that smacks of life is better than to 
feel Davy Jones's chest-lid on your nose/' He is reck- 
less as an avalanche ; and though his fall destroy himself 
and others, yet a ruinous commotion is better than 
being frozen fast in imendurable solitudes. No wonder, 
then, that he goes all lengths to procure the thing he 
craves; no wonder that he pays the most exorbitant 
prices, breaks through all law, and braves the ignomi- 
nious lash itself, rather than be deprived of his 
stimulus. 

Now, concerning no one thing in a man-of-war are 
the regulations more severe than respecting the smug- 
gling of grog, and being found intoxicated. For either 
offence there is but one penalty, invariably enforced; 
and that is, the degradation of the gangway. 

AH conceivable preqautions are taken by most Mgate- 
exeoatives to guard i^ainst the secret admission of 
spirits into the vesseL In the first place, no shore- 
boat whatever is allowed to approach a man-of-war in 
a foreign harbour without permission from the Officer 
of the deck. Even the bum-boats, the small craft 
licensed by the officers to bring off fruit for the sailors, 
to be bought out of their own money — ^these are inva- 
riably inspected before permitted to hold intercourse 



280 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

with the ship's company. And not only this, but every 
one of the numerous ship's boats — ^kept almost conti- 
nually plying to and from the shore — are similarly 
inspected, sometimes each boat twenty times in the day. 

This inspection is thus performed : The boat being 
descried by the quarter-master from the poop, she is 
reported to the deck-officer, who thereupon summons 
the master-at-arms, the ship's Chief of Police. This 
functionary now stations himself at the gangway, and 
as the boat's crew, one by one, come up the side, he 
personally overhauls them, making them take off their 
hats, and then, placing both hands upon their heads, 
draws his palms slowly down to their feet, carefully 
feeling all imusual protuberances. If nothing suspicious 
is felt, the man is let pass ; and so on, till the whole 
boat's crew, averaging about sixteen men, are examined. 
The Chief of Police then descends into the boat, and 
walks from stem to stem, eyeing it all over, and poking 
his long rattan into every nook and cranny. This 
operation concluded, and nothing found, he mounts the 
ladder, touches his hat to the deck-officer, and reports 
the boat clean; whereupon she is hauled out to the 
booms. 

Thus it will be seen that not a man of the ship's 
company ever enters the vessel from shore without it 
being rendered next to impossible, apparently, that he 
should have succeeded in smuggling anything. Those 
individuals who are permitted to board the ship withoi^ 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 281 

undergoing this ordeal^ are only persons whom it would 
be preposterous to search — such as the Commodore 
himself, the Captain^ Lieutenants^ &c.^ and gentlemen 
and ladies coming as visitors. 

For any thing to be clandestinely thrust through the 
lower port-holes at nighty is rendered very difficult, 
firom the watchfulness of the quarter-master in hailing 
all boats that approach^ long before they draw along- 
side^ and the vigilance of the sentries^ posted on plat- 
forms overhanging the water, whose orders are to fire 
into a strange boat which, after being warned to with- 
draw, should still persist in drawing nigh. Moreover, 
thirty-two-pound shot are slung to ropes, and suspended 
over the bows, to drop a hole into and sink any small 
craft, which, spite of all precautions, by strategy should 
succeed in getting under the bows with liquor by night. 
Indeed, the whole power of martial law is enlisted in 
this matter ; and every one of the numerous .officers of 
the ship, besides his general zeal in enforcing the regu- 
lations, adds to that a personal feeling, since the 
sobriety of the men abridges his own cares and 
anxieties. 

How then, it will be asked, in the face of an argus- 
eyed police, and in defiance even of bayonets and 
bullets, do man-of-war's-men contrive to smuggle their 
spirits ? Not to enlarge upon minor stratagems— every 
few days detected, and rendered nought (such as rolling 



up, in a neckerchief, a long, slender ^' skin ^^ of grog, 



282 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

like a sausage^ and in that manner ascending to the 
deck out of a boat just firom shore ; or openly bringing 
on board cocoa-nuts and melons, procured from 
a knavish bum-boat, fiUed with spirits, instead of milk 
or water) — ^we will only mention here two or three 
other modes, coming under my own observation. 

While in Rio, a fore-top-man, belonging to the 
second cutter, paid down the money, and made an 
arrangement with a person encountered at the Palace- 
landing ashore, to the following effect. Of a certain 
moonless night, he was to brin^ off three gallons of 
spirits, in skins, and moor them to the frigate's anchor- 
buoy — some distance from the vessel — attaching some- 
thing heavy, to sink them out of sight. In the middle 
watch of the night, the fore-top-man slips out of his 
hammock, and by creeping along in the shadows, eludes 
the vigilance of the master-at-arms and his mates, gains 
a port-hole, and softly lowers himself into the water, 
almost without creating a ripple — the sentries marching 
to and fro on their overhanging platform above him. 
He is an expert swimmer, and paddles along under the 
surface, every now and then rising a Httle^ and lying 
motionless on his back to breathe — ^little but his nose 
exposed. The buoy gained, he cuts the skins adrift, 
ties them round his body, and in the same adroit 
manner makes good his return. 

This feat is very seldom attempted, for it needs the 
utmost caution, address, and dexterity; and no one 



■ — ^»— ^■— -*— — — — - - _ _ I II I - .. — g^ — _j 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 288 

but a super-expert burglar^ and fiiultless Leander of 
a swimmer, could achieve it. 

Prom the greater privileges which they enjoy, the 
** forward officers/* that is, the Ounner, Boatswain, 
&c., have much greater opportunities for successfdl 
smuggling than the common seamen. Coming along- 
side one night in a cutter. Yam, our boatswain, in some 
inexplicable way, contrived to slip several skins of 
brandy through the air-port of his own state-room. 
The feat, however, must have been perceived by one of 
the boat's crew, who immediately, on gaining the 
deck, sprung down the kdders, stole into the boat- 
swain's room, and made away with the prize, not three 
minutes before the rightful owner entered to claim it. » 
Though, from certain circumstances, the thief was 
known to the aggrieved party, yet the latter could say 
nothing, since he himself had infringed the law. But 
the next day, in the capacity of captain of the ship's 
executioners. Yam had the satisfaction (it was so to 
him), of standing over the robber at the gangway ; for, 
being found intoxicated with the very liquor the boat- 
swain himself had smuggled, the man had been con- 
demned to a flogging. 

This recalls another instance, still more iQustrative of 
tiie knotted, trebly intertwisted villainy, accumulating at 
a sort of compound interest in a man-of-war. The 
cockswain of the Commodore's barge takes his crew 
apart, one by one, and cautiously sounds them as to 



284 WHTTE-JACKET; OB, 

their fidelity-7-not to the United States of America^ but 
to himself. Three individuals^ whom he deems doubtful 
— ^that is, faithful to the United States of America — he 
procures to be discharged from the barge, and men of 
his own selection are substituted ; for he is always an 
influential character, this cockswain of the Commodore's 
barge. Previous to this, however, he has seen to it 
well, that no Temperance men — ^that is, saQors who do 
not draw their government ration of grog, but take the 
money for it — ^he has seen to it, that none of these 
balkers are numbered among his crew. Having now 
proved his men, he divulges his plan to the assembled 
body; a solemn oath of secrecy is obtained, and he 
waits the first fit opportunity to carry into execution 
his nefarious designs. 

At last it comes. One afternoon the barge carries 
the Commodore across the Bay to a fine water-side 
settlement of noblemen's seats, called Praya Grande. 
The Commodore is visiting a Portuguese marquis, and 
the pair linger long over their dinner in an arbour in 
the 'garden. Meanwhile, the cockswain has liberty to 
roam about where he pleases. He searches out a place 
where some choice red-eye (brandy) is to be had, pur- 
chases six large bottles, and conceals them among the 
trees. Under the pretence of filling the boat-keg with 
water, which is always kept in the barge to refresh the 
crew, he now carries it off into the grove, knocks out 
the head, puts the bottles inside, reheads the keg, fills 



THE WOKLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 285 

it with water^ carries it down to the boat^ and auda- 
ciously restores it to its conspicuous position in the 
.middle^ with its bung-hole up. When the Commodore 
comes down to the beach, and they pull off for the ship, 
the Cockswain, in a loud voice, commands the nearest 
man to take that bung out of the keg — ^that precious 
water will spoil. Arrived alongside the frigate, the 
boat^s crew axe overhauled, as usual, at the gangway ; 
and nothing being found on them, are passed. The 
master-at-arms now descending into the barge, and 
finding nothing suspicious, reports it clean, having put 
his finger into the open bung of the keg and tasted that 
the water was pure. The barge is ordered out to the 
booms, and deep night is waited for, ere the Cockswain 
essays to snatch the bottles from the keg. 

But, unfortunately for the success of this masterly 
smuggler, one of his crew is a weak-pated fellow, who, 
having drank somewhat freely ashore, goes about the 
gun-deck throwing out profound tipsy hints concern- 
ing some unutterable proceeding on the ship^s anvil. 
A knowing old sheet-anchor-man, an imprincipled fel- 
low, putting this, that, and the other together, ferrets 
out the mystery ; and straightway resolves to reap the 
goodly harvest which the Cockswain has sowed. He 
seeks him out, takes him to one side, and addresses 
him thus : — 

'' Cockswain, you have been smuggHng off some red- 
eye, which at this moment is in your barge at the 



286 WHITE- JACKET; OB, 

booms. NoWj Cockswain^ I have stationed two of my 
messmates at the port-holes^ on that side of the ship; 
and if they report to me that you, or any of your 
bargemen, offer to enter that barge before morning, 
I will immediately report you as a smuggler to the 
Officer of the deck/' 

The Cockswain is astounded; for, to be reported to 
the deck-officer as a smuggler, would inevitably procure 
him a sound flogging, and be the disgraceM breaking 
of biTTi as a petty officer, receiving four dollars a month 
beyond his pay as an able seaman. He attempts to 
bribe the other to secrecy, by promising half the profits 
of the enterprise ; but the sheet-anchor-man's integrity 
is Hke a rock ; he is no mercenary, to be bought up for 
a song. The Cockswain, therefore, is forced to swear 
that neither himself, nor any of his crew, shall enter 
the barge before morning. This done, the sheet-anchor- 
man goes to his confidants, and arranges his plans. In 
a word, he succeeds in introducing the six brandy 
bottles into the ship; five of which he sells at eight 
dollars a bottle ; and then, with the sixth, between two 
guns, he secretly regales himself and confederates ; 
while the helpless Cockswain, stifling his rage, bitterly 
eyes them from afar. 

Thus, though they say that there is honour among 
thieves, there is little among man-of-war smugglers. 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 287 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

A KKATB 19 OFFIOX IN ▲ MAN-OF-WAB. 

The last smuggling story now about to be related 
also occurred while we lay at Bio. It is the more 
particularly presented, since it fiimishes the most 
curious evidence of the almost incredible corruption 
pervading nearly aU ranks in some men-of-war. 

For some days^ the number of intoxicated sailors 
collared and brought up to the mast by the master-at- 
arms^ to be reported to the deck-officers — ^previous to 
a flogging at the gangway-*had in the last degree excited 
the surprise and vexation of the Captain and senior 
officers. So strict were the Captain's regulations con- 
cerning the suppression of grog-smuggbng^ and so par- 
ticular had he been in charging the matter upon all the 
Lieutenants, and every imder-strapper official in the 
frigate, that he was wholly at a loss how so large 
a quantity of spirits could have been spirited into the 
ship, in the face of all these checks, guards, and 
precautions. 

StQl additional steps were adopted to detect the 
smugglers 3 and Bland, the master-at-arms, together 
with his corporals, were publicly harangued at the mast 
by the Captain in person, and charged to exert their 



288 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

best powers in suppressing the traffic. Crowds were 
present at the time^ and saw the master-at-arms touch 
his cap in obsequious homage^ as he solemnly assured 
the Captain that he would still continue to do his best ; 
as, indeed, he said, he had always done. He concluded 
with a pious ejaculation^ expressive of his personal 
abhorrence of smuggling and drunkenness^ and his 
fixed resolution^ so help him Heaven, to spend his 
last wink in setting up by night, to spy out aU deeds 
of darkness. 

'^ I do not doubt you, master-at-arms/* returned the 
Captain; ^^now go to your duty.'' This master-at- 
arms was a favourite of the Captain's. 
. The next morning, before breakfast, when the 
market-boat came off (that is, one of the ship's boats 
regularly deputed to bring off the daily fresh provisions 
for the officers) — when this boat came off, the master- 
at-arms, as usual^ after carefully examining both her 
and her crew^ reported them to the deck-officer to 
be fr^e from suspicion. The provisions were then 
hoisted out, and among them came a good-sized wooden 

box, addressed to '^ Mr. ^ Purser of the United 

States ship Neversink." Of course, any private matter 
of this sort, destined for a gentleman of the ward-room, 
was sacred from examination, and the master-at-arms 
commanded one of his corporals to carry it down into 
the Purser's state-room. But recent occurrences had 
sharpened the vigilance of the deck-officer to an un- 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 289 

wonted degree^ and seeing the box going down the 
hatchway^ he demanded what that was, and whom it 
was for. 

''All right, sir/' said the master-at-arms, touching 
his cap ; '' stores for the Purser, sir/' 

"Let it remain on deck,'' said the Lieutenant. 
''Mr. Montgomery!" calling a midshipman, "ask the 
Purser whether there is any box coming off for him 
this morning." 

" Ay, ay, sir," said the middy touching his cap. 

Presently he returned, saying that the Purser was 
ashore. 

"Very good, then; Mr, Montgomery, have that box 
put into the ' brig,' with strict orders to the sentry not 
to suffer any one to touch it." 

" Had I not better take it down into my mess, sir, 
till the Purser comes off?" said the master-at-arms, 
deferentially. 

"I have given my orders, sir !" said the Lieutenant 
turning away. 

When the Purser came on board, it turned out that 
he knew nothing at all about the box. He had never 
so much as heard of it in his life. So it was again 
brought up before the deck-officer, who immediately 
summoned the master-at-arms. 

" Break open that box I" 

"Certainly, sir!" said the master-at-arms; and, 
wrenching off the cover, twenty-five brown jugs, like 

VOL. I. 



290 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

a litter of twenty-five brown pigs, were found snugly 
nestled in a bed of straw. 

'* The smugglers are at work, sir,'' said the master- 
at-arms, looking up. 

" Uncork and taste it,'' said the officer. 

The master-at-arms did so ; and smacking his lips 
after a puzzled fashion, was a little doubtful whether 
it was American whisky or Holland gin ; but he said 
he was not used to liquor. 

*' Brandy j I know it by the smell,'' said the officer ; 
'^ return the box to the brig." 

'^ Ay, ay, sir," said the master-at-arms, redoubling 
his activity. 

The affair was at once reported to the Captain^ who, 
incensed at the audacity of the thing, adopted every 
plan to detect the gmltjr parties. Inquiries were made 
ashore ; but by whom the box had been brought down 
to the market-boat there was no finding out. Here 
the matter rested for a time. 

Some days after, one of the boys of the mizzen-top 
was flogged for drunkenness, and, while suspended in 
agony at the gratings, was made to reveal from whom 
he had procured his spirits. The man was called, and 
turned out to be 9n old superannuated marine, one 
Scriggs, who did the cooking for the marine-sergeants 
and masters-at-arms' mess. This marine was one of 
the most villanous-looking fellows in the ship, with 
a squinting, picklock, grey eye, and hang-dog, gallows 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 291 

gait. How such a most immartial vagabond Iiad in- 
sinuated himself into the honourable marine corps was 
a perfect mystery. He had always been noted for his 
personal uncleanliness^ and among all hands^ fore and 
aft^ had the reputation of being a notorious old miser^ 
who denied himself the few comforts^ and many of the 
common necessaries of a man-of-war life. 

Seeing no escape^ Scriggs fell on his knees before the 
Captain^ and confessed the chaise of the boy. Observ- 
ing the fellow to be in an agony of fear at the sight of 
the boatswain's mates and their lashes^ and all the 
striking parade of public punishment^ the Captain must 
have thought this a good opportunity for completely 
pumping him of all his secrets. This terrified marine 
was at length forced to reveal his having been for some 
time an accomplice in a complicated system of under- 
hand viUainy^ the head of which was no less a personage 
than the indefatigable chief of police^ the master-at- 
arms himself. It appeared that this official had his 
confidential agents ashore^ who supplied him with 
spirits^ and in various boxes^ packages^ and bundles — 
addressed to the Purser and others — ^brought them down 
to the frigate's boats at the landing. Ordinarily^ the 
appearance of these things for the Purser and other 
ward-room gentlemen occasioned no surprise ; for almost 
every day some bundle or other is coming off for them^ 
especially for the Purser ; and^ as the master-at-arms 
was always present on these occasions^ it was an easy 

02 



292 WHITE-JACKET; OE, 

matter for him to hurry the smuggled liquor out of 
sight, and under pretence of carrying the box or bundle 
down to the Purser's room^ hide it away upon his own 
premises. 

The miserly marine, Scriggs, with the picklock eye, 
was the man who clandestinely sold the spirits to the 
sailors, thus completely keeping the master-at-arms in 
the background. The liquor sold at the most exorbitant 
prices ; at one time reaching twelve dollars the bottle 
in cash^ and thirty dollars a bottle in orders upon the 
Purser, to be honoured upon the Mgate's arrival home. 
It may seem incredible that such prices should have 
been given by the sailors ; but when some man-of-war's- 
men crave liquor, and it is hard to procure, they would 
almost barter ten years of their lifetime for but one 
solitary " tot" if they could. 

The sailors who became intoxicated with the liquor 
thus smuggled on board by the master-at-arms, were, in 
repeated instances, officially seized by that functionary, 
and scourged at the gangway. In a previous place it 
has been shown how conspicuous a part the master-at- 
arms enacts at this scene. 

The ample profits of this iniquitous business were 
divided between all the parties concerned in it ; Scriggs, 
the marine, coming in for one-third. His cook's mess- 
chest being brought on deck, four canvass bags of silver 
were found in it^ amounting to a sum something short 
of as many hundred dollars. 



J 



THE WOBJLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 293 

The guilty parties were scourged, double-ironed, and 
for several weeks were confined in the ^^brig/' under 
a sentry ; all but the master-at-arms, who was merely 
cashiered, and imprisoned for a time, with bracelets at 
his wrists. Upon being liberated, he was turned adrift 
among the ship's company ; and, by way of disgracing 
him still more, was thrust into the waist, the most 
inglorious division of the ship. 

Upon going to dinner one day, I found him soberly 
seated at my own mess ; and at first I could not but feel 
some very serious scruples about dining with him. 
Nevertheless, he was a man to study and digest ; so 
upon a little reflection, I was not displeased at his 
presence. It amazed me, however, that he had wormed 
himself into the mess, since so many of the other 
messes had declined the honour ; until at last, I ascer- 
tained that he had induced a messmate of ours, a dis^ 
tant relation of his, to prevail upon the cook to admit 
him. 

Now it would not have answered for hardly any other 
mess in the ship to have received this man among them, 
for it would have torn a huge rent in their reputation ; 
but our mess, A. No. 1 — ^the Forty-two-pounder Club 
— ^was composed of so fine a set of fellows ; so many 
captains of tops, and quarter-masters — ^men of un- 
deniable mark on board ship-— of long-established stand- 
ing and consideration on the gun-deck; that with 
impunity we could do many equivocal things, utterly 



294 WrHTEB- JACKET ; OE, 

inadmissible for messes of inferior pretension. Besides, 
though we all abhorred the monster of Sin itself, yet, 
from our social superiority, highly rarified education in 
our lofty top, and large and liberal sweep of the aggre- 
gate of things, we were in a good degree free from those 
useless, personal prejudices, and galling hatreds against 
conspicuous AnnetB — ^not Sin — ^which so widely prevail 
among men of warped understandings, and unchristian 
and uncharitable hearts. No ; the superstitions and dog- 
mas concerning Sin had not laid their withering maxims 
upon our hearts. We perceived how that evil was but 
good disguised, and a knave a saint in his way ; how 
that in other planets, p^haps, what we deem wrong, 
may there be deemed right; even as some substances, 
without undergoing any mutations in themselves, utterly 
change their colour, according to the light thrown 
upon them. We perceived that the anticipated millen- 
nium must have begun upon the morning the first 
worlds were created; and that, taken all in all, our 
man-of-war world itself was as eUgible a round-stemed 
craft as any to be found in the Milky May. And we 
fancied that though some of us, of the gun-deck, were 
at times condemned to sufferings and slights, and all 
manner of tribulation and anguish, yet, no doubt, it 
was only our misapprehension of these things that made 
us take them for woeM pains instead of the most 
agreeable pleasures. I have dreamed of a sphere, says 
Finzella, where to break a man on the wheel is held the 



THE WOKU) IN A MAN-Or-WAE. 295 

most exquisite of delights you can confer upon him ; 
where for one gentleman in any way to vanquish 
another^ is accounted an everlasting dishonour ; where 
to tumble one into a pit after deaths and then throw 
cold dods upon his upturned £Etce^ is a species of 
contumely, only inflicted upon the most notorious 
criminals. 

But whatever we messmates thought^ in whatever 
circumstances we found ourselves, we never forgot that 
our frigate, bad as it was, was homeward-bound. Such, 
at least, were our reveries at times, though sorely jarred, 
now and then, by events that took our philosophy 
aback* For after all, philosophy — ^that is, the best 
wisdom that has ever in any way been revealed to our 
nian-of-war world — is but a slough and a mire, with 
a few tufts of good footing here and there. 

But there was one man in the mess who would have 
nought to do with our philosophy — a churlish, ill- 
tempered, unphilosophical, superstitious old bear of 
a quarter-gunner; a believer in Tophet, for which he 
WM accordingly preparing himself. Priming was his 
name ; but methinks I have spoken of him before. 

* 

Besides, this Bland, the master-at-arms, was no 
vulgar, dirty knave. In him — to modify Burke's 
phrase — ^viee seemed, but only seemed, to lose half its 
seeming evil by losing all its apparent grossness. He 
was a neat and gentlemanly villain, and broke his 
biscuit with a dainty hand. There was a fine polish 



296 WHITE- JACKET ; OB, 

about his whole person^ and a pliant^ infflnuating 
style in his conversation^ that was^ socially^ quite 
irresistible. Save my noble captain^ Jack Chase, he 
proved himself the most entertaining^ I had almost 
said the most companionable man in the mess. Nothing 
but his mouth> that was somewhat small^ Moorisk- 
archedj and wickedly delicate^ and his snaky, black eye, 
that at times shone like a dark-lantern in a jeweller's- 
shop at midnight^ betokened the accomplished scoundrel 
within. But in his conversation there was no trace of 
evil ; nothing equivocal ; he studiously shimned an in- 
delicacy, never swore, and chiefly abounded in passing 
puns and witticisms, varied with humorous contrasts 
between ship and shore life, and many agreeable and 
racy anecdotes, very tastefully narrated. In 'short — ^in 
a merely psychological point of view, at least — he was 
a charming blackleg. Ashore, such a man might have 
been an irreproachable mercantile swindler, circulating 
in polite society. 

But he was stiU more than this. Indeed, I claim for 
this master-at-arms a lofty and honourable nidie in the 
Newgate Calender of history. His intrepidity, coolness 
and wonderful self-possession in calmly resigning him*- 
self to a fate that thrust him from. an office in which h» 
had tyrannized over five hundred mortals, numy of 
whom hated and loathed, him, passed all belief; Us 
intrepidity^ I say, in now fearlessly gliding among 
them, like a disarmed sword-fish among ferodons 



THE WOULD IN A MAN-OF-WAB. 297 

white sharks; this^ surely^ bespoke no ordinary man. 
While in office, even, his life had often been secretly 
attempted by the seamen whom he had brought to the 
gangway. Of dark nights they had dropped shot down 
the hatchways, destined ''to damage his pepper-box,'^ 
as they phrased it; they had made ropes with a hang- 
man's noose at the end, and tried to lasso him in dark 
comers. And now he was adrift among them, under 
notorious circumstances of superlative villainy, at last 
dragged to light ; and yet he blandly smiled, politely 
offered his cigar-holder to a perfect stranger, and laughed 
and chatted to right and left, as if springy, buoyant, 
and elastic, with an angelic conscience, and sure of 
kind friends wherever he went, both in this life and the 
life to come. 

While he was lying ironed in the "brig,'' gangs of 
the men were sometimes overheard whispering about 
the terrible reception they would give him when he 
should be set at large. Nevertheless, when liberated, 
they seemed confounded by his' erect and cordial 
assurance, his gentlemanly sociability and fearless com- 
panionableness. From being an implacable police-man, 
vigilant, cruel, and remorseless in his office, however 
polished in his phrases, he was now become a disin- 
terested, sauntering man of leisure, winking at all 
improprieties, and ready to laugh and make merry with 
any one. Still, at first, the men gave him a wide 
berth, and returned scowls for his smiles ; but who can 

08 



298 WHITE-JACKET; OB9 

for ever resist the very Devil himself^ wlien he comes 
in the guise of a gentleman, free, fine, and frank? 
Though Clanqui^s pious Zantua hates the Devil in his 
horns and harpooner's tail, yet she smiles and nods to^ 
the engaging fiend in the persuasive, winning, oily^ 
wholly harmless Don. But, however it was, I, for one, 
regarded this master-at-arms with mixed feelings of 
detestation, pity, admiration, and something opposed 
to enmity. I could not but abominate him when 
I thought of his conduct ; but I pitied the continual 
gnawing which, under all his deftly-donned disguises, 
I saw at the bottom of his soul. I admired his heroism 
in sustaining himself so well under such reverses. And 
when I thought how arbitrary the Articles of War are 
in defining a man-of-war villain ; how much undetected 
guilt might be sheltered by the aristocratic awning of 
our quarter-deck ; how many florid pursers, ornaments 
of the ward-room, had been legally protected in 
defrauding ^'the people,'^ I could not but say to myself]| 
Well, after all, though this man is a most wicked one 
indeed, yet is he even more luckless than depraved. 

Besides, a studied observation of Bland convinced 
me that he was an organic and irreclaimable scoundrel, 
who did wicked deeds as the cattle browse the herbage, 
because wicked deeds seemed the legitimate operation 
of his whole infernal organization. Fhrenologically, he 
was without a soul. Is it to be wondered at, that the 
devils are irreligious ? "What, then, thought I, who is 



# 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 299 

to blame in this matter? For one, I will not take the 
Day of Judgment upon me by authoritatively pro-* 
nouncing upon the essential criminality of any man-of- 
war's-man; and Christianity has taught me that, at the 
last day, man-of-war's-men will not be judged by the 
Articles of War, nor by the United States Statutes at 
Large, but by immutable laws, ineffably beyond the 
comprehension of the honourable board of Commodores 
and Navy Commissioners. 

But though I will stand by even a man-of-war thief, 
and defend him from being seized up at the gangway, 
if I can — ^remembering that my Saviour once hung 
between two thieves, promising one life eternal — ^yet 
I would not, after the plain conviction of a villain, 
again let him entirely loose to prey upon honest 
seamen, fore and aft all three decks. But this did 
Captain Claret ; and though the thing may not perhaps 
be credited, nevertheless, here it shall be recorded. 

After the master-at-arms had been adrift among the 
ship's company for several weeks, and we were within 
a few days' sail of home, he was summoned to the 
mast, and publicly reinstated in his ofGlce as the ship's 
chief of police. Perhaps Captain Claret had read the 
Memoirs of Vidocq, and believed in the old saying, Set 
a rogue to catch a rogue. Or, perhaps, he was a man 
of very tender feelings, highly susceptible to the 
soft emotions of gratitude, and could not bear to leave 
in disgrace a person who, out of the generosity of hiji 



300 WHITB-JACKET ; OK, 

hearty had^ about a year previ(m8j presented him ivitli 
a rare snuff-box^ £Bibrieated from a sperm-whale'fi tooili» 
with a curious silver hinge^ and cunningly wrought in 
the shape of a whale; also a splendid gold-moonted 
caney of a costly Brazilian wood^ with a gold plate^ 
bearing the Captain's name and rank in the service, 
the place and time of his birth, and with a vacancy 
underneath — ^no doubt providentially left for his heirs 
to record his decease. 

Certain it was that, some months previous to the 
master-at-arms' disgrace, he had presented these arti«* 
cles to the Captain, with his best love and compliments ; 
and the Captain had received them, and seldom went 
ashore without the cane, and never took smiff but out 
of that box. With some Captains, a sense of propriety 
might have induced them to return these presents, 
when the generous donor had proved himself unworthy 
of having them retained ; but it was not Captain Claret 
who would inflict such a cutting woimd upon any 
officer's sensibihties, though long-estabUshed naval cus- 
toms had habituated him to scourging " the people " 
upon an emergency* 

Now had Captain Claret deemed himself constitu- 
tionally bound to decline all presents from his soboir'- 
dinates, the sense of gratitude would not have operated 
to the prejudice of justice. And, as some of the subor- 
dinates of a man-of-war captain are apt to invoke his 
good wishes and mollify his conscience by making him 



THE WOSLD IN A UAN-QF-WAB. 801 

friendly gifts^ it would perhaps have been an excellent 
thing for him to adopt the plan pursued by the Presi* 
dent of the United States^ when he reeeired a present 
of lions and Arabian chargers from the Sultan of 
Muscat* Being forbidden by his sovereign lords and 
masters^ the imperial people^ to accept of any gifts from 
foreign powers, the President sent them to an auc- 
tioneer, and the proceeds were deposited in the Treasury. 
In the same manner, when Captain Claret received his 
snuff-box and cane, he might have accepted them very 
kindly, and then sold them off to the highest bidder, 
perhaps to the donor himself, who in that case would 
never have tempted him again. 

Upon his return home. Bland was paid off for his fiill 
term, not deducting the period of his suspension. He 
again entered the service in his old capacity. 

A9 no further allusion will be made to this affair, 
it may as well be stated now, that, for the very brief 
period elapsing between his restoration and being paid 
oS in port by the Purser, the master-at-arms conducted 
himself with infinite discretion, artfully steering be- 
tween any relaxation of discipline — ^which would have 
awakened the displeasure of the officers — and any unwise 
severity — ^which would have revived, in ten-fold force, 
all the old grudges of the seamen under his command. 

Never did he show so much talent and tact as when 
vibrating in this his most delicate predicament; and 
plenty of cause was there for the exercise of his 



302 WHITS- JACKET ; OB, 

cuimingest abilities; for^ upon the discliarge of our 
man-of-war's-meii at home^ should he then be heM by 
them as an enemy; as free and independent citizens 
they would waylay him in the public streets, and take 
purple vengeance for all his iniquities, past, present, and 
possible m the future. More than once, a master-at- 
arms ashore has been seized by night by an exasperated 
crew, and served as Qrigen served himself, or as his 
enemies served Abelard. 

But though, under extreme provocation, ''the people" 
of a man-of-war have been guilty of the maddest ven- 
geance, yet, at other times, they are very placable and 
milky-hearted, even to those who may have outrage- 
ously abused them; many things in point might be 
related, but I forbear. 

This account of the master^t-arms cannot better 
be concluded than by denominating him, in the vivid 
language of the Captain of the Fore-top, as " the two 
ends and middle of the thrice4atd strand of a bloody 
rascal,^* which was intended for a terse, well-knit, and 
aU-comprehensive assertion, without omission or reser- 
vation. It was also asserted that, had Tophet itself 
been raked with a fine tooth-comb, such another in» 
efTable villain could not by any possibility have been 
caught. 



THE WQBLD IN A MAN-OT-WAK. 303 



CHAPTER XLV. 



PUBLISHIHa POBTRT IN A KAK-OF-VAR. 



A DAT or two after our arrival in Bio^ a rather 
amusing incident occurred to a particular acquaintance 
of mine^ young Lemsford^ the gun-deck bard. 

The great guns of an armed ship have blocks of 
wood^ called tompitms, painted blacky inserted in their 
muzzles^ to keep out the spray of the sea. These 
tompions slip in and out very handily, like covers to 
butter firkins. 

By advice of a friend, Lemsford, alarmed for the fate 
of his box of poetry, had latterly made use of a par* 
ticular gun on the main-deck, in the tube of which he 
thrust his manuscript, by simply crawling partly out of 
the port-hole, removing the tompion, inserting his 
papers, tightly rolled, and making all snug again* 
Little Quoin, the quarter-gunner, was on the '^sick- 
list " then. 

Breakfast over, Lemsford and I were reclining in the 
main-top — ^where, by permission of my noble master, 
Jack Chase, I had invited him — ^when, of a sudden, we 
heard a cannonading. It was our own ship. 



304 WHITE-JACKET; OB^ 

"Ah V' said a top-man^ ^^ returning the shore salute 
they gave us yesterday/' 

'^O Lord!" cried Lemsford^ ''my Songs of the 
Sirens /'' and he ran down the rigging to the batteries ; 
but just as he touched the gun-deck^ gun No. 20 — his 
Hterary strong-box — ^went off mth a terrific report. 

''Well, my after-guard Virgil/' said Jack Chase to 
him, as he slowly returned up the rigging, " did yon 
get it? You need not answer; I see you were too 
late. But never mind, my boy; no printer could do 
the business for you better. That's the way to publish^ 
White- Jacket," turning to me — " fire it right into 'em ; 
every canto a twenty-four-pound shot; htdl the block- 
heads whether they will or no. And mind you, Lems- 
ford, when your shot does the most execution, you 
hear the least from the foe. A killed man cannot 
even Usp." 

" Glorious Jack !" cried Lemsford, running up and 
snatching him by the hand, "say that again, Jack! 
look me in the eyes. By all the Homers, Jack, you 
have made my soul mount like a balloon ! Jack, I'm 
a poor devil of a poet. Not two months before 
I shipped aboard here, I published a volimie of poems, 
very aggressive on the world. Jack. Heaven knows 
what it cost me. I published it. Jack, and the cursed 
publisher sued me for damages; my friends looked 
sheepish, one or two who liked it were non-committal ; 
and as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, they 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 805 

thouglit they liad found out a fool. Blast them^ Jack^ 
what they call the public is a monster^ like the idol we 
saw in Owhyhee^ with the head of a jackass^ the body of 
a baboon^ and the tail of a scorpion I *' 

'^ I donH like that/* said Jack ; '^ when I'm ashore^ 
I myself am part of the public." 

'^Your pardon^ Jack; you Bxe not. You are then 
a part of the people, just as you are aboard the frigate 
here. The public is one thing. Jack, and the people 
another." 

"You are right/' said Jack; "right as this leg- 
Virgil, you are a trump ; you are a jewel, my boy. 
The public and the people ! Ay, ay, my lads, let us 
hate the one, and cleave to the other." 



306 WHITE-JACKET; OB, 



CHAPTEE XLVI. 

THl OOimOPOBl ON THB POOP, AND OKS OP "THB PSOPLB** VVDBR TBB 

HAJTDB OP THB 8UB0B0B. 

A BAT or two after the publication of Lemsford's 
'' Songs of the Sirens/' a sad accident befel a mess« 
mate of mine^ one of the captains of the mizzen-top. 
He was a fine little Scot^ who from the premature loss 
of the hair on the top of his head, always went by the 
name of Baldy. This baldness was no doubt, in great 
part, attributable to the same cause that early thins 
the locks of most man-of-war's-men — ^namely, the hard, 
unyielding, and ponderous man-of-war, and navy- 
regulation, tarpaulin hat, which, when new, is stiff 
enough to sit upon, and indeed, in lieu of his thumb, 
sometimes serves the common sailor for a bench. 

Now, there is nothing upon which the Commodore of 
a squadron more prides himself than upon the celerity 
with which his men can handle the sails, and go through 
with all the evolutions pertaining thereto. This is 
especially manifested in harbour, when other vessels 
of his squadron are near, and perhaps the armed 
ships of rival nations. 

Upon these occasions, surrounded by his post-captain 
satraps — each of whom in his own floating island is 
king — ^the Commodore domineers over all — emperor 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 807 

of the whole oaken archipelago; yea magisterial and 
magnificent as the Sultan of the Isles of Sooloo. 

But^ even as so potent an emperor and Caesar to 
boot as the Great Don of Germany, Charles the Fifth, 
was used to divert himself in his dotage by watching 
the gyrations of the springs and cogs of a long row of 
clocks, even so does an elderly Commodore while away 
his leisure in harbour, by what is called ^^ exercising 
guns" and also '' exerdsif^ yards and sails ;" causing 
the various spars of all the ships under his command 
to be "braced,^' ''topped,*' and " cock-billed *' in 
concert, while the Commodore himself sits, something 
like King Canute, on an arm-chest on the poop of his 
flag-ship. 

But far more regal than any descendant of Charle- 
magne, more haughty than any Mogul of the East, and 
abnost mysterious and voiceless in his authority as the 
Great Spirit of the Five Nations, the Commodore deigns 
not to verbalize his commands ; they are imparted by 
signal. 

And as for old Charles the Fifth, again, the gay- 
pranked, coloured suits of cards were invented to while 
away his dotage, even so, doubtless, must these pretty 
little signals of blue and red spotted bunting have been 
devised to cheer the old age of all Commodores. 

By the Commodore's side stands the signal-midship- 
man, with a sea-green bag swung on his shoulder (as a 
sportsman bears his game-bag), the signal-book in one 
hand, and the signal spy-glass in the other. As this 



308 WHTTE-JACEBT ; OB, 

signal-book contains the Masonic signs and tokens of 
the nayy, and would therefore be invaluable to an 
enemy, its binding is always bordered witt lead, so as 
to ensure its sinking in case the ship should be captured. 
Not the only book this, that might appropriately be 
bound in lead, though there be many where the author, 
iand not the bookbinder, furnishes the metal. 

As White- Jacket understands it, these signals consist 
of variously-coloured flags, each standing for a certain 
number. Say there are ten flags, representing the car- 
dinal numbers — ^the red flag. No. 1 ; the blue flag, No. 
2 ; the green flag. No. 3, and so forth; then by mount- 
ing the blue flag over the red, that would stand for No, 
21 : if the green flag were set underneath, it would then 
stand for 213. How easy, then, by endless transpo- 
sitions, to multiply the various numbers that may be 
exhibited at the mizzen-peak, even by only seven or 
eight of these flags. 

To each number a particular meaning is applied. 
No. 100, for instance, may mean, " Beat to quarters^* 
No. 150, ''AU hands to grog!' No. 2,000, '' Strike top- 
gaUawt-Ajarday No. 2,110, '' Set anything to windward?' 
No. 2,800, " No:* 

And as every man-of-war is furnished with a signal- 
book, where all these things are set down in order, 
therefore, though two American frigates — almost per- 
fect strangers to each other — came from the opposite 
Poles, yet at a distance of more ]than a mile they could 
carry on a very liberal conversation in the air. 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 309 

When several men-of-war of one nation lie at anchor 
in one port^ forming a wide circle round their lord and 
master, the flag-ship^ it is a very interesting sight to see 
them all obeying the Commodore's orders^ who mean- 
while never opens his lips. 

Thus was it with us in Bio^ and hereby hangs the 
story of my poor messmate Baldy. 

One mornings in obedience to a signal from our flag- 
ship, the various vessels belonging to the American 
squadron then in harbour simultaneously loosened their 
sails to dry. In the evening, the signal was set to fiirl 
them. Upon such occasions great rivalry exists between 
the First Lieutenants of the different ships ; they vie 
with each other who shall first have his sails stowed on 
the yards. And this rivalry is shared between all the 
officers of each vessel, who axe respectively placed over 
the different top-men; so that the main-mast is all 
eagerness to vanquish the fore -mast, and the mizzen* 
mast to vanquish them both. Stimulated by the shouts 
of their officers, the sailors throughout the squadron 
exert themselves to the utmost. 

"Aloft, top-men! lay out! furl!*' cried the First 
Lieutenant of the Neversink. 

At the word the men sprang into the rigging, and on 
all three masts were soon climbing about the yards, in 
reckless haste to execute their orders. 

Now, in furling top-sails or courses, the point of 
honour, and the hardest work, is in the bunt, or middle 



310 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

of the yard ; tUs post belongs to the first captain of the 
top. 

" What are you 'bout there^ mizzen-top-men? " Toared 
the First lieutenant, through his trumpet. " D — ^n 
you, you are clumsy as Russian bears ! don't you see 
the main-top-men are nearly off the yard? Bear a 
hand, bear a hand, or Fll stop your grog all round ! 
You, Baldy ! are you going to sleep there in the 
bunt?'' 

While this was being said, poor Baldy — his hat off, 
his face streaming with perspiration — ^was franticly ex- 
erting himself, piling up the ponderous folds of canvass 
in the middle of the yard ; ever and anon glancing at 
victorious Jack Chase, hard at work at the main-top- 
sail-yard before him. 

At last, the sail being well piled up, Baldy jumped 
with both feet into the bunt, holding on with one hand 
to the chain " tie/^ and in that manner was violently 
treading down the canvass to pack it dose. 

" D — ^n you, Baldy, why don't you move, you crawl- 
ing caterpillar ?" roared the First Lieutenant. 

Baldy brought his whole weight to bear on the rebel- 
lious sail, and in his frenzied heedlessness let go his hold 
on the tie. 

" You Baldy! are you afraid of felling?" cried the 

First Lieutenant. 

At that moment, with all his force, Baldy jumped 

down upon the sail ; the bunt-gcisket parted ; and a dark 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAIU 311 

form dropped through the air. Lighting upon the 
top-rim, it rolled off; and the next instant, with a 
horrid crash of all his bones, Baldy came, like a 
thunder-bolt, upon the deck. 

Aboard of most large men-of-war there is a stout 
oaken platform, about four feet square, on each side of 
the quarter-deck. You ascend to it by three or four 
steps ; on top, it is railed in at the sides, with horizontal 
brass bars. It is called the Horse Block; and there the 
officer of the deck usually stands, in giving his orders 
ai* sea. 

It was one of these horse blocks, now unoccupied, that 
broke poor Baldy^s faU. He fell lengthwise across the 
brass bars, bending them into elbows, and crushing the 
whole oaken platform, steps and all, right down to the 
deck in a thousand splinters. 

He was picked up for dead, and carried below to the 
surgeon. His bones seemed like those of a man broken 
on the wheel, and no one thought he would survive the 
night. But with the surgeon^s skilful treatment he at 
last promised recovery. Surgeon Cuticle devoted all 
his science to this case. 

A curious frame-work of wood was made for the 
maimed man ; and placed in this, with all his limbs 
stretched out, Baldy lay flat on the floor of the Sick- 
bay for many weeks. Upon our arrival home, he was 
able to hobble ashore on crutches; but from. a hale, 
hearty little man, with bronzed cheeks, he was become 
a mere dislocated skeleton^ white as foam ; but ere this, 



312 WHITE- JACKET ; OE, 

perhaps^ his broken bones are healed and whole in the 
last repose of the man-of-war's-man. 

Not many days after Baldy's accident in furling sails 
— in this same frenzied manner^ under the stimulus 
of a shouting officer — a seaman fell from the main- 
royal-yard of an English line-of-battle ship near us, and 
buried his ankle-bones in the deck, leaving two inden- 
tations there, as if scooped out by a carpenter's gouge. 

The royal-yard forms a cross with the mast, and 
falling from that lofty cross in a line-of-battle ship is 
almost like falling from the cross of St. Paul's ; almost 
Uke falling as Lucifer from the well-spring of morning 
down to the Phlegethon of night. 

In some cases, a man, hurled thus from a yard, has 
fallen upon his own shipmates in the tops, and dragged 
them down with him to the same destruction with 
himself. 

Hardly ever will yon hear of a man-of-war return- 
ing home after a cruise without the loss of some of her 
crew from aloft, whereas similar accidents in the 
merchant service — considering the much greater number 
of men employed in it — ^are comparatively few. 

Why mince the matter ? The death of most q£ these 
man-of-war's-men lies at the door of the souls of those 
officers, who, while safely standing on deck themselves, 
scruple not to sacrifice an immortal man or two, in 
order to show off the excelling discipline of the ship. 
And thus do " the people " of the gun-deck suffer, that 
the Commodore on the poop may be glorified. 



THE WOULD m A. HAN-OI'-WAB. S13 



CHAPTEE XLVII. 

▲ N AUCTION IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 

Some allusioii has been made to the weariness expe- 
rienced hj the man-of-war's-man while lying at anchor; 
but there are scenes now and then that serve to relieve 
it. Chief among these are the Purser's auctions, taking 
place while in harbour. Some weeks^ or perhaps 
months, after a sailor dies in an armed vessel, his bag 
of clothes is in this manner sold, and the proceeds 
transferred to the account of his heirs or executors. 

One of these auctions came off in Bio, shortly alter 
the sad accident of Baldy. 

It was a dreamy, quiet afternoon, and the crew were 
listlessly lying around, when suddenly the Boatswain's 
whistle was heard, followed by the announcement, 
" D'ye hear there, fore and aft ! Purser's auction on 
the spar deck I" 

At the sound, the sailors sprang to their feet and 
mustered round the main-mast. Presently up came 
the Purser's steward, marshalling before him three or 
fotur of his subordinates, carrying several clothes' bags, 
which were deposited at the base of the mast. 

VOL. I. P 



314 WHITE- JACKET ; OB^ 

Our Purser's steward was a rather gentlemanly man 
in his way. Like many young Americans of his class^ 
he had at various times assumed the most opposite 
functions for a livelihood^ turning from one to the other 
with all the facihty of a light-hearted, clever adventurer. 
He had been a clerk in a steamer on the Mississippi 
River; an auctioneer in Ohio; a stock actor at the 
Olympic Theatre in New York; and now he was 
Purser'^ steward in the Navy, In the course of this 
diversified career his natural vdt and waggery had been 
highly spiced, and every way improved; and he had 
acquired the last and most difficult art of the joker, the 
art of lengthening his own face while widening those 
of his hearers, preserving the utmost solemnity while 
setting them all in a roar. He was quite a favourite 
with the sailors, which, in a good degree, was owing to 
his humour; but likewise to his off-hand, irresistible, 
romantic, theatrical manner of addressing them. 

With a dignified air, he now mounted the pedestal of 
the main-top-sail sheet-bitts, imposing silence by a 
theatrical wave of his hand; meantime, his subordi- 
nates were rummaging the bags, and assorting their 
contents before him. 

" Now, my noble hearties,^' he began, " we wiU open 
this auction by offering to your impartial competition 
a very superior pair of old boots;'' and so saying, ke 
dangled aloft one clumsy cowhide cylinder, almost as 
large as a fire bucket, as a specimen of the complete pair. 



THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAH. 315 

" What sliall I have now, my noble tars, for this 
superior pair of sea-boots V^ 

"Where's t'other boot V* cried a suspicious-eyed 
waister. '^ I remember them 'ere boots. They were old 
BoVs the quarter-gunner^s ; there was two on 'em, too. 
I want to se^ t'other boot." 

"My sweet aiid pleasant fellow," said the auctioneer, 
with his blandest accents, " the other boot is not just 
at hand, but I give you my word of honour that it in all 
respects corresponds to the one you here see — it does, 
I assure you. Yes : I solemnly guarantee, my noble 
sea-fencibles," he added, turning round upon all, " that 
the other boot is the exact counterpart of this. Now 
then, say the word, my fine fellows. What shall I have? 
Ten dollars, did you say?" politely bowing toward 
some indefinite person in the background. 
No ; ten cents," responded a voice. 
Ten cents I ten cents ! gallant sailors, for this noble 
pair of boots," exclaimed the auctioneer, with affected 
horror ; " I must close the auction, my tars of Colum- 
bia; this will never do. But let's have another bid; 
now, come," he added, coaxingly and soothingly. 
" What is it ? One dollar ? One dollar, then — one dol- 
lar; going at one dollar; going, going — going. Just 
see how it vibrates " — swinging the boot to and fro — 
'^ this superior pair of sea-boots vibrating at one dol- 
lar ; wouldn't pay for the nails in their heels ; going, 
going — ffone /" And down went the boots. 






316 WHITE-JACKET; OR, 

'^ Ah, wliat a sacrifice ! what a sacrifice V* he sighed, 
tearfully eyeing the solitary fire-bucket, and then 
glancing round the company for sympathy. 

'^ A sacrifice, indeed !^^ exclaimed Jack Chase, who 
stood by ; " Purser^s Steward, you are Mark Antony 
over the body of Julifis Caesar." 

''Sol am, so I am," said the auctioneer. "And 
look !" he exclaimed, suddenly seizing the boot, and 
exhibiting it on high, "look, my noble tars, if you have 
tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know 
this boot. I remember the first time ever old Bob put 
it on. 'Twas on a winter evening, off Cape Horn, 
between the starboard carronades — ^that day his pre- 
cious grog was stopped. Look ! in this place a mouse 
has nibbled through ; see what a rent some envious rat 
has made ; through this another filed, and, as he 
plucked his cursed rasp away, mark how the boot-leg 
gaped. This was the unkindest cut of aU. — But whose 
are the boots ?" suddenly assuming a business-like air; 
"yours? yours? yours?" 

But not a friend of the. lamented Bob stood by. 

" Tars of Columbia," said the auctioneer, impera- 
tively, "these boots must be sold; and if I canH sell 
them one way, I must sell them another. How much 
a pound, now, for this superior pair of old boots ? 
going by the pound now, remember, my gallant sailors 1 
what shall I have ? one cent, do I hear? going now at 
one cent a pound — agoing — going — going — gone /" 



THE WOBU) IN A MAN-OF-WAE. 817 

^' Whose are they ? Yours, Captain of the Waist ? 
Well, my sweet and pleasant Mend, I will have them 
weighed out to you when the auction is over/' 

In like manner all the contents of the bags were dis- 
posed of, embracing old frocks, trowsers, and jackets, 
the various sums for which they went being charged to 
the bidders on the books of the Purser. 

Having been present at this auction, though not 
3 purchaser, and seeing with what facility the most 
dismantled old garments went off, through the magical 
cleverness of the accomplished auctioneer, the thought 
occurred to me, that if ever I calmly and positively 
decided to dispose of my famous white jacket, tliis 
would be the very way to do it, I turned the matter 
over in my mind a long time. 

The weather in Rio was genial and warm, and that 
I would ever again need such a thing as a heavy 
quilted jacket — and such a jacket as the white one, too 
— seemed almost impossible. Yet I remembered the 
American coast, and that it would probably be Auttxmn 
when we should arrive there. Yes, I thought of all 
that, to be sure ; nevertheless, the ungovernable whim 
seized me to sacrifice my jacket and recklessly abide 
the consequences. Besides, was it not a horrible 
jacket? To how many annoyances had it subjected 
me ! How many scrapes had it dragged me into ! 
Nay, had it not once jeopardised my very existence ? 
And I had a dreadful presentiment that, if I persisted 

p3 



318 WHITB- JACKET ; OE, 

in retaining it^ it would do so again. Enough ! I will sell 
it^ I muttered ; and so muttering, I thrust my hands 
further down in my waistband, and walked the main- 
top in the stem concentration of an inflexible purpose. 
Next day, hearing that another auction was shortly to 
take place, I repaired to the office of the Parser's 
steward, with whom I was upon rather friendly terms. 
After vaguely and delicately hinting at the object of 
my visit, I came roundly to the point, and asked him 
whether he could slip my jacket into one of the bags 
of clothes next to be sold, and so dispose of it by 
public auction. He kindly acquiesced, and the thing 
was done. 

In due time all hands were again summoned round 
the mainmast ; the Purser's steward mounted his post, 
and the ceremony began. Meantime, I lingered out of 
sight, but still vdthin hearing, on the gun-deck below, 
gazing up unperceived, at the scene. 

As it is now so long ago, I will here frankly make 
confession that I had privately retained the services of 
a friend — ^Williams, the Yankee pedagogue and pedlar 
-—whose business it would be to linger near the scene 
of the auction, and, if the bids on the jacket loitered, 
to start it roundly himself; and if the bidding then 
became brisk, he was continually to strike in with the 
most pertinacious and infatuated bids, and so exasperate 
competition into the maddest and most extravagant 
overtures. 



THE WOmiD m A MAK-OF-WAR. 319 

A variety of other articles having been put up, the 
white jacket was slowly produced^ and^ held high aloft 
between the auctioneer's thumb and fore-finger^ was 
submitted to the inspection of the discriminating 
public. 

Here it behoves me once again to describe my 
ja<^et ; for^ as a portrait taken at one period of life will 
not answer for a later stage ; much more this jacket of 
mine, undergoing so many changes, needs to be painted 
again and again, in order truly to present its actual 
appearance at any given period. 

A premature old age had now settled upon it; all 
over it bore melancholy scars of the masoned-up pockets 
that had once trenched it in various directions. Some 
parts of it were slightly mildewed from dampness ; on 
one side several of the buttons were gone, and others 
were broken or cracked, while, alas ! my many mad 
endeavours to rub it black on the decks had now im- 
parted to the whole garment an exceedingly imtidy 
appearance. Such as it was, with all its faults, the 
auctioneer displayed it. 

'^ You venerable sheet-anchor-men ! and you, gallant 
fore-top-men 1 and you, my fine waisters I what do 
you say now for this superior old jacket ? Buttons and 
sleeves, lining and skirts, it must this day be sold with- 
out reservation. How much for it, my gallant tars of 
Columbia? say the word, and how much?'' 

*' My eyes !" exclaimed a fore-top-man, " don't that 



820 WHITE- JACKET; OB, 

ere bunch of old swabs belong to Jack Chasers pet ? 
Am't that the white Jacket ?" 

" The white jacket !" cried fifty voices in response > 
" the white jacket !^* The cry ran fore and aft the ship 
like a slogan^ completely overwhelming the solitary 
voice of my private Mend Williams^ while all hands 
gazed at it with straining eyes^ wondering how it came 
among the bags of deceased mariners. 

" Ay, noble tars/^ said the auctioneer, " you may 
well stare at it ; you will not find another jacket like 
this on either side of Cape Horn, I assure you. Why, 
just look at it ! How much, now ? Give me a bid — 
but don't be rash ; be prudent, be prudent, men ; re- 
member your Purser's accounts, and don't be betrayed 
into extravagant bids." 

"Purser's Steward!" cried Grummet, one of the 
quarter-gunners, slowly shifting his quid firom one 
cheek to the other, like a ballast-stone, " I won't bid 
on that 'ere bunch of old swabs, unless you put up ten 
pounds of soap with it/' 

" Don't mind that old feUow," said the auctioneer. 
^^ How much for the jacket, my noble tars ?" 

" Jacket !" cried a dandy bone-polisher of the gun- 
room. "The sail-maker was the tailor, then. How 
many fa;thoms of canvass in it. Purser's Steward ?" 

" How much for tins jacket?" reiterated the auction- 
eer, emphatically. 
. " Jacket, do you call it ! " cried a Captain of the 



THE WOBLD IN A MAN-OF-WAK. 321 

hold. '' Why not call it a white-washed man-of-war 
schooner ? Look at the port-holes, to let in the air of 
cold nights/' 

" A regular herring-net/' chimed in Grummet. 

"Gives me the fever -nagur to look at it," echoed 
a mizzen-top-man. 

'' Silence V^ cried the auctioneer. " Start it now — 
start it, boys ; any thing you please, my fine fellows ! 
it must be sold^ Come, what ought I to have on it, 
now V^ 

^' Why, Purser's Steward,'' cried a waister, " you 
ought to have new sleeves, a new lining, and a new 
body on it, afore you try to shove it off on a green- 
horn." 

'* What are you busin' that 'ere garment for ?" 
cried an old sheet-anchor-man. " Don't you see if* 
a 'uniform mustering jacket '—three buttons on one 
side and none on f other ? " 

"Silence!" again cried the auctioneer. "How much, 
my sea-fencibles, for this superior old jacket ?" 

" Well," said Grummet, " I'll take it for cleaning- 
rags at one cent." 

" Oh, come, give us a bid ! say something, Colum- 
bians." 

" Well, then," said Grummet, all at once bursting 
into genuine indignation, " if you want us to say some- 
thing, then heave that bunch of old swabs overboard, 
say /, and show us something worth looking at," 



322 white-jaco:t. 

" No one will give me a bid, then ? Very good ' 
here, ahove it aside. Let^s have something else there.^^ 

While this scene was going forward, and my white 
jacket was thus being abused, how my heart swelled 
within me I Thrice was I on the point of rushing out 
of my hiding-place, and bearing it off from derision ; 
but I lingered, still flattering myself that all would be 
well, and the jacket find a purchaser at last. But no, 
alas! there was no getting rid of it, except by rolling 
a forty-two-pound shot in it, and committing it to the 
deep. But though, in my desperation, I had once con- 
templated something of that sort, yet I had now become 
unaccountably averse to it, from certain involuntary 
superstitious considerations. If I sink my jacket, 
thought I, it will be sure to spread itself into a bed 
at the bottom of the sea, upon which I shall sooner or 
later recline, a dead man. So, unable to conjure it into 
the possession of another, and withheld from burying it 
out of sight for ever, my jacket stuck to me like the 
fatal shirt on Nessus. 



END OP VOL. I. 



B. OLAT, P&nrTEB, BREAD STREET HILL. 



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